Emily King

Biography

British rider Emily King (23), one of the youngest riders this year, made her first and last appearance at Badminton in 2016 (but did not complete). Emily is the reigning British Under-25 champion having won the championship at Bramham last June with Badminton entry Dargun. She is based near Holywell in Flintshire where she runs a yard with partner Sam Ecroyd.

Emily who is from Devon is the daughter of former Badminton winner and six times Olympic rider Mary King. She learnt to ride at a young age and completed her first affiliated event at the age of 12 and represented GB when she was 15-years-old at the 2011 Junior European Championships. The following year she was the Junior European silver medallist (Mr Hiho) and in 2015 was fifth in Under-25 national championship at Bramham and then the won Young Rider team gold (Loxley) at Strzegom. She was also the runner up in the national seven-year-old championship at Osberton (Dargun) and at the end of 2015 completed her first four-star at Pau with Brookleigh finishing in fourth place. In 2018 she won her first international three-day the CCI1* at Ballindenisk with Kings Rose a second generation homebred mare out of her Mother’s former four-star mare Kings Temptress.

She trains with Olympic dressage rider Kyra Kyrklund and Richard White and her mother Mary King and outside of horses enjoys skiing and tennis.

Dargun is an 11-year-old Dutch-bred KWPN gelding. He is by Vaillant out of Nandalite by Inferno. He was acquired by his owner as a six-year-old from rider Vicky Tuffs. In 2015 with Emily he was second in the British Young Horse seven-year-old championship. Badminton will be the horse’s first four-star.