Guards Polo Club Official Yearbook 2017 Official Yearbook 2017 | Page 60

land rover masterclass
TR ADING PLACES
Land Rover Polo Ambassador Max Charlton has probably ridden a horse almost every day for the
past 10 years. So surely a chance to have a dressage lesson from Olympic gold medallist and fellow
Land Rover Ambassador Laura Tomlinson shouldn’t be a problem for this seven-goal player?
Jake Eastham captured the action and Catherine Austen reports back on what happened next...
R
iding is riding, right? If you can
ride a horse, you can, well, ride a
horse. Not, as it turns out, if you
are a polo player – even one of England’s
best – and the equine you are riding is a
dressage horse.
“How can such a bad rider be a good
player?” asks Max Charlton halfway
through his dressage lesson with Laura
Tomlinson at her beautiful Gloucestershire
yard. “I honestly feel like I have never
ridden before.”
Both Max and Laura are Land Rover
ambassadors, but their equestrian worlds
are poles apart. Laura was part of the
British dressage team that won Olympic
gold at the London 2012 Games and
also took home the individual bronze
medal with her top horse, Mistral Hojris
60
– a huge, chestnut Danish Warmblood
who was well-known as a hot-headed
powerhouse of a horse.
However, she is married to England six-
goal player Mark Tomlinson and so has
her own strong connections with the polo
world. So Laura isn’t surprised Max found
it hard work riding 11-year-old Kristjan,
a tall home-bred who competes at Prix St
Georges level.
“Dressage is all about the rider’s seat
influencing the horse – and that is
completely different to polo,” she explains.
With stirrups far longer than he is
used to, Max cannot cope with Kristjan’s
movement in trot at all. Walk and canter
are happier paces and, once he remembers
to keep his hands on either side of the
horse’s neck, he does manage to produce
guards polo club official yearbook 2017