Gemma Watts

Gemma Watts is an 18-year-old event rider. She started eventing back in 2018 and, despite a rocky start (eliminated in both of her first events!), she caught the eventing bug. Thankfully she has had a few more successes since, including first reserve for the Pony European team in 2022, and being long-listed for the Junior Europeans in 2023 and 2024.

Her current event horses are Kasagrande VR (Tango) and Rubin Moon SB (Rubin). Tango joined the team back in 2020. She was given the opportunity for Rubin to join the team in 2022 due to a muscular injury that required rehabilitation. Both horses have now evented up to 3 star level.

Producing Tango from a young horse piqued Gemma’s interest in working with young horses, and she has recently been working with young race horses. She is looking fowards to developing her riding in her new job as a working pupil for Padraig McCarthy, and by having the opportunity of being on the Performance Mentoring Programme.