When Dassett Select (JJ) failed to find a buyer as a youngster, his rider Kate Rocher-Smith ended up reaping the rewards.

For Kate, a 41-year-old mother of two, reaching the Defender Burghley Horse Trials for the first time this year represents the culmination of a journey that began with a non-horsey family, a fascination with horses and a grandmother who first took her to watch the sport she would one day compete in.

JJ was never really supposed to be Kate’s Burghley horse. The now 12-year-old, owned by Patricia Marshall and Lesley and Philip Rocher, arrived at Kate’s Warwickshire sales yard – which has established itself as one of the best in eventing – as a young horse with a future that, like many of the horses Kate produces, was expected to involve finding the right buyer and moving on to a new home, but that never happened.

“He didn’t sell,” Kate says. “He stayed with us, my mum got involved with him, and so we’ve moved him on up the grades. I’ve owned him since he was three, so a long time.

“Horses don’t sell for a heap of reasons, and I’m fortunate JJ stayed.”

It was a fortunate outcome for Kate, because JJ’s character has gradually revealed a horse with the attributes to make it to the very top.

“He’s a funny balance of a horse,” she explains. “He can really need you and be actually quite insecure and quite cautious. But then he also can absolutely not need you.”

These characteristics can make JJ tricky to ride, but Kate believes it is part of what makes him so effective too.

“Sometimes he’s a funny horse to connect with,” she admits. “But I think that’s what makes him so good fundamentally because he’s actually pretty tough on the inside – and they have to be to be able to compete at this level.”

JJ has had his setbacks along the way, too. After finishing 48th on his Badminton debut in 2025, he had to be withdrawn from Burghley shortly before the competition after a niggling splint became too much of an issue, which also meant they were unable to line up at Badminton this Spring too. But they are here now and raring to go.

‘I’m not from a horsey background’

Kate didn’t grow up in a traditionally horsey family. She was raised in London, but she says she was always fascinated by horses.

“My late grandmother would tell the story of when she took me to a park and police horses came by,” Kate recalls. “One of them was slobbering right in my face in the pram, and I just was delighted.”

“I think it was all there,” she adds. “I was always really drawn to horses.”

Her grandparents farmed in Suffolk, and Kate found another outlet for her love of the outdoors there.

“I was massively involved in that, in the lambing sheds and with the cattle,” she says. “I was a proper outdoors girl.”

From those beginnings, horses gradually became more and more important, while the young-horse sales business developed alongside Kate’s ambition to event.

“Initially it probably started as a way to try and fund the eventing,” she explains. “But it’s very much become our mainstay now.”

It is a busy operation, and one that remains very much a family affair.

“The kids are on the yard all the time and it’s a big family effort.”

Kate’s late grandmother was the person who first took her to watch Burghley when she was a child – before she even rode.

“I remember she brought me here when I was small, before I rode or knew what horses were,” she says. “I was just in awe of it all.”

She remembers standing at the Leaf Pit and Lion Bridge, and so finally getting to compete here means a great deal.

“To actually be here – I’ve thought of my grandmother a lot.”

Speaking about how she feels to be competing here, Kate says: “I think my nerves are probably more fear of failure. It’s such a massive team effort to get here and people put so much into it.”

Kate and JJ have now completed their dressage at Burghley – they scored 43.5, which Kate is a little disappointed with, but they are looking ahead to the next two phases.

“The dressage wasn’t our finest – he’s very capable on the flat and he’s worked really hard, actually. He naturally would be a runner, and that’s a little bit what came out in the test.”

Yet Kate is hoping that same enthusiasm could become an advantage across country.

“He feels really up for it,” she says.

Images by Tim Wilkinson

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