Bologna, Sunday 31 July 2022 – The world of international equestrian sport has today lost one of its most extraordinary protagonists: Anneli Drummond-Hay, a formidable woman, was missing even before being a portentous Amazon.
The life of Anneli Drummond-Hay is a dramatic, exciting, moving novel … Not for nothing, Princess Anne of England in the preface she herself wrote in the autobiography of the recently released British champion (“Merely a Rider”, Quiller Editions , www.quillerpublishing.com) commented with relief: “Thank God… Anneli has decided to tell her story!”.
Born on August 4, 1937, daughter of the daughter of the Duke of Hamilton and a Scottish nobleman, Anneli grew up during the war and post-war years in an aristocratic family but no more money: she never goes to school, she grows up together with only horse of the family – a pony – spared from war requisitions.
A series of daring adventures (literally: including an escape from home on the saddle of her pony and a sack filled with apples …) finally leads Anneli to meet the horse of her life: Merely A Monarch, born in 1955. With him still very young Anneli won the Burghley international outfit in 1961 and the Badminton outfit in 1962…! A series of phenomenal successes in complete, a discipline however at the time still forbidden to women at the Olympic level so Anneli decided to devote herself to show jumping: and until 1970 with Merely A Monarch (and with Xanthos) she constituted a combination with magnificent results. Anneli and Merely are great protagonists both in the Grand Prix and in the Nations Cup in Rome, London, Geneva, Toronto, Madrid, just to mention some of the most important obstacle courses in the world during those years.
1963 is a magnificent year for Anneli Drummond-Hay with Merely A Monarch (victories in the Nations Cup in Rome and London, and 3rd place in the GP in Piazza di Siena), a combination that in fact is included in the list of probable Olympians in sight. Tokyo 1964 in all three specialties… complete (first Olympics open to women), dressage and show jumping! However, she opts only for show jumping, but before the Games she gives in to purchase offers from an owner with the promise that Merely will continue to remain under his saddle: instead shortly after the horse is entrusted to David Broome … Goodbye Olympics . However, the new pairing does not work as expected, despite the mastery of a magnificent knight like Broome, and so Merely returns to Anneli. There will then be two more Olympics that Anneli will lose due to last-minute circumstances.
In 1971 Anneli married a South African man and acquired his nationality (later kept forever). She stops riding a horse, or in any case participating in competitive events for a very long period, during which her marriage fails. But she finds a horse – young, born in 1984 – of great quality, Olympian: later with him for the colors of South Africa she participates in the 1994 World Championship in The Hague, her last major competition, although her competitive career continues. then until 2001.
Anneli Drummond-Hay had recently had serious health problems, which nevertheless seemed to be overcome with the same resolve and determination with which she has always solved the difficulties of her life: whether it was one of the most difficult cross-country courses in the world or that of the greatest international show jumping Grand Prix, or of life problems in a more general sense. Instead this morning the terrible news: Anneli Drummond-Hay has left us. She left us physically, yes: in reality the meaning of her presence in the world of equestrian sport will never go away.
