Showjumping is booming thanks to a host of glamorous young female competitors who are “the daughters of some of the richest, most powerful people in the world”, says Jamie Reid in the Financial Times. Look at Jessica Springsteen, Bruce’s 29-year-old daughter, who won a showjumping silver at the Tokyo Olympics this summer. But you need money to ride with the best. The “warmblood” horses preferred for competition range in price from £40,000 to more than £100,000. Stabling, training, vets’ bills and travel can cost £15,000 a month. A bespoke, handstitched Hermès saddle is yours for £5,700, and the priciest boots have magnets to stop riders losing a stirrup. “It’s an expensive sport, for sure,” says Mathilde Pinault, the 19-year-old daughter of luxury goods billionaire François-Henri Pinault.
Three years ago the father of rising French star Flore Giraud relocated the family to Normandy, the home of French equestrianism, and built a state-of-the-art stable. (The Girauds and the Pinaults are friends.) Haras de Lécaude has an equine pool, a spa and horse massage therapists. In Wellington, Florida – described by novelist Carl Hiaasen as “the Hamptons with extra sunblock” – Bill Gates has spent $59m on a stable complex for his daughter Jennifer, 25. Just down the road is the $15m ranch of Steve Jobs’s 23-year-old daughter Eve. But there’s a chance to earn a bit of that back in the saddle – Wellington hosts an annual equestrian festival with $13m in prizes up for grabs.