Zara Phillips Retires Toytown

Aug 11, 2011
Elizabeth Batt

Zara and Toytown at the 2009 Badminton Horse Trials - Henry Bucklow

A 12-year partnership came to an end at Gatcombe Park on August 7, as an emotional Zara Phillips retired her event gelding, Toytown.

He was the horse that took her to a World Eventing championship, but Ginger or Noddy as he was affectionately called, was not an easy horse to partner. Toytown needed a lot of training as an event horse; but it only took one person to believe in him. That person was Zara Phillips, who with great emotion, retired her, "Horse of a lifetime," on August 7, at Gatcombe's, Festival of British Eventing.

Toytown's successes

Toytown's exact breeding has never been known and while his spotted coat and long head, kept him from true equine handsomeness, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and Phillips adored him. Discovered in 1999 by Zara's father, Capt. Mark Phillips, Toytown took Phillips to two championships in 2002, the Under-25 Championship at the Branham Horse Trials, and the Young Riders European Championships in Austria.

In 2003, at the esteemed Burghley Horse Trials, Toytown carried Phillips to second place behind equestrian great, Pippa Funnell, but an injury forced the gelding off the eventing scene completely in 2004 and out of contention for the Athens Olympics. The following year, 2005, Toytown and Phillips brought home the Individual and team gold at the European Eventing Championships at Blenheim and secured second place at the CCI**** Luhmuhlen Horse Trials.

2006 proved equally successful for the pair at the World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany, when Zara and the 17hh chestnut gleding, took Individual gold and assisted the team to silver. In 2007, they won team gold at the European Eventing Championships in Rome, Italy. A shot at the Olympic dream however, would always thwart the successful duo and despite being selected for the British Equestrian Team for Beijing 2008, yet another injury to Toytown forced them to withdraw.

Toytown was not always a dream ride

It is easy to assume that exceptional talent, must require absolute equine discipline. Toytown had his own ideas and could be quite the handful at times. In Sep. 2007, BBC equestrian presenter Clare Balding, said that Zara was never given enough credit for controlling the big red horse, who wasn't above throwing a tantrum now and again.

Balding said, "People think that he must be the best horse in the world but he isn't." Describing the horse as, "Immensely talented," Balding added that Toytown was not above throwing, "a right strop at times." Balding was referencing Gatcombe, earlier in 2007, when during the dressage phase she said, "He went complete bonkers and started rearing." Back in 2001, another strop took Phillips out of the Windsor CCI** event, where after leading going into the show jumping phase, Toytown proceeded to knock down six fences.

Tantrums or not, Zara Phillips loved her horse. Riding Toytown into the arena for one last time on August 7, 2011 at Stroud's, Gatcombe Park, a tearful Phillips stepped off his back, removed his saddle and officially retired him. "It’s the end of an era." she said. "He was the horse of a lifetime for me. We grew up together, we went through the levels together, and it all just seemed to go our way."