September 7, 2025 
If you were spinning an epic tale about the sport of eventing, you might start with an on-the-nose name for your protagonist like “Canter” and build your story arc around any number of plot lines.
Defending champion overcomes mentally challenging circumstances to reclaim title.
Champion horse and rider make history with unmatched five-star win record.
Lady rider claims five-star title while pregnant with second child.
And all of those stories would be thrilling in their own right. But none would come close to the real life action hero that is Ros Canter.
The 39-year-old Brit didn’t just tick all three of those boxes at Defender Burghley Horse Trials on Sunday aboard her mighty partner Lorships Graffalo, she set records while doing it.
And made it look effortless all the while.
Canter and her partner of five years, “Walter,” returned to defend their 2024 title at Defender Burghley with an extra passenger on board. Ziggy’s mom is currently pregnant with her second child. Did first trimester bloating stop her from riding into second in dressage on a score of 22.4?
No, it did not.
Their score was just 0.4 penalty points off the five-star personal best they set at the same venue the year prior.
On Saturday, Canter took her fetus took on stroll around Derek di Grazia’s cross country course with Walter and promptly jumped straight to the top of the leaderboard. They were the only combination to jump clear and within the 11:24 minute time allowed on a course that saw 13 eliminated and five retire.
Did mom-to-be pause before facing a challenge that would have most riders quaking in their boots? For a hot second.
“It’s a big deal coming here in my situation,” said the world number two after her cross country ride. “There was a lot at stake and I wanted to be here, there was never any doubt about that. But the reality is all eyes were on me and, yeah, I did definitely have a little jump [in the] morning—quietly for my benefit, not for Walter’s—just to make sure that my tummy muscles and everything were functioning well and my mental state was in a good enough place to go out the start box. But the moment I had a jump on Walter [in the] morning I knew that it was all systems going.”
As the final pair to trot into the stadium at Burghley, Canter had 10 plus penalties in hand. You might have expected a strategic slow and steady ride to clinch the win. But that’s not Canter’s style.
“I went in thinking I wanted to be inside the time because I tend to ride better when I’m under a bit of pressure,” she shared. “But then once then I settled into the course and I knew I did have a bit buffer equally it would have been silly to not prepare Walter as best I could for a fence because I was in a rush.”
Canter and Walter added just 1.2 time penalties to their score to finish on an incredible 23.6.
In doing so they bested their own record, set the year prior, to set the new lowest score in the 64-year history of the event. They did it with a nine point advantage over runners up Austin O’Connor and Colorado Blue to win by the biggest margin in modern sport. (As they did at Badminton.) And Lordships Graffalo became the first horse in history to TWICE win Defender Burghley and Mars Badminton.
“What can I say, he is the ultimate event horse,” said Canter in the post ride interview.
And she, the ultimate event rider.
