William Fox-Pitt predicts GB eventers have the class to deliver Paris gold

William Fox-Pitt believes that Great Britain’s eventers are “sitting pretty” ahead of their Olympic team title defence in Paris.

Five-time Olympian Fox-Pitt won medals at Athens, Beijing and London during a stellar career that saw him triumph in a record 14 elite five-star events, including Burghley six times and Badminton twice.

He also collected 17 world and European medals, but Britain has rarely dominated the sport like it does currently.

Five of the top seven world-ranked riders are British, and such enviable strength in depth is highlighted by world number two and Tokyo team gold medallist Oliver Townend not even making the team.

World number one, reigning European individual champion and 2023 Badminton winner Ros Canter spearheads the British challenge alongside Tom McEwen, who landed team gold and individual silver in Tokyo, and Laura Collett, who completed the 2021 British team at those Games.

And current world champion Yasmin Ingham travels as the alternate combination aboard Banzai Du Loir, further showcasing remarkable consistency and quality that underpins Britain’s status as overwhelming favourites.

Should they land gold again – the competition starts in Versailles on Saturday – it will be only the second time that a British eventing team has won successive Olympic crowns since Richard Meade-inspired victories in 1968 and 1972.

“We are probably sitting on three different British teams that could win gold,” Fox-Pitt told the PA news agency.

“What we have got in our sport now is incredible. We have got some very good horses and riders, and it is really exciting.

“You just do not know in this sport, and plenty of times it just doesn’t happen, but ahead of Paris we are sitting pretty and it will be exciting to watch.”

Fox-Pitt will be in Paris as coach to the Brazil eventing team and Japanese rider Kazuma Tomoto, who finished fourth individually in Tokyo.

“I am a Brit through and through – I always have been – and now I am sitting over the fence being a complete traitor! That’s life and business.”

Even in a sport as unpredictable as eventing across its three phases of dressage, cross-country and showjumping, the form guide is truly in Britain’s favour.

Diarmuid Byrne, managing director of global equestrian data provider EquiRatings, said: “I think the British team and set-up has remained very steady and solid.

“The Germans in the past have dominated, but they rarely strayed beyond a core of four riders. What we are seeing in Britain is, honestly, probably the third team would be higher rated than almost every other nation.

“What is unprecedented is the depth of that British squad, how far they go down. There is a never-ending talent conveyor belt.

“Even in Britain, I don’t think we have seen that before. The energy, the enthusiasm is high. They are in the middle of a period of dominance.”