Her Kingdom For A Horse?

When Princess Anne came to the Ukrainian capital of Kiev to defend her nonhereditary title of European equestrian champion, she became the first member of the British royal family to visit the Soviet Union since the Revolution in 1917. The city was almost touchingly proud to receive her, and totally bemused by her royal status: Why on earth was she called Princess Anne instead of some equivalent of Anna Filipovna, the only respectful Russian form of address? Are her two younger brothers really ahead of her in line to the throne? (Most unfair.) When she marries this commoner, Mark Phillips , will she still be a princess? Will her sons be princes? And who knows what Kiev made of the rest of the British entourage. There were six other teams competing, but they were as unremarkable as the local militia, which seemed at times to outnumber the spectators. The British were, on the other hand, colorful individualists. To begin with, men made up the other teams; all riders for Britain but one were women, though the girls had strong and particularly plummy support. Princess Anne had her fianc� and father Philip (who is, of course, the great-great-grandson of Czar Nicholas I as well as the head of the International Equestrian Federation); Debbie West brought her parents and a boyfriend; Lucinda Prior-Palmer had drafted her father, a retired major general, as her groom. There were trainers, horse owners, the Duke of Bedford's brother, Lord Hugh Russell, with members of the selection committee, a group from the British Horse Society and assorted hangers-on—dogsbodies, as they cheerfully called themselves. If the assemblage had anything in common it was perhaps that its members were typed some time ago by Evelyn Waugh as the Britishers who tend "to regard all athletics as inferior forms of fox hunting." No wonder they turn out for three-day eventing, as this form of equestrian competition is called: the cross-country, at least, has everything except the fox.

As for Anne, while the Soviets were pondering matters of address and succession to the throne they brushed past the aspect of the princess that takes the fancy of Westerners—the fact that she has entered major athletic competition and won or lost publicly on her own merits. In Kiev , Anne remained a storybook figure. A university student remarked, "This is the age of space exploration and Communism, but when a princess is in town I feel like part of a legend." A Soviet team member, watching Anne, was also reminded of a fairy tale. He admired her exceptional elegance as a rider, but added, "You know, I think there is a pea under the princess' saddle."

The remark about summed it up. After four years in major competition Anne is a seasoned athlete, but in Kiev she seemed edgy and off balance from the start, and she never did complete the course. The Ukraine is far from the exquisite green mix of Burghley, where she won her European title two years ago. And, to do her justice, she had a lot going against her, starting with her failure in August to make the team at all. Her horse, Doublet, was eliminated for three refusals at the Osberton Trials, and she was in Kiev to defend her title by special invitation. Then, due to a mix-up in aircraft bookings, the British arrived in Kiev far too early to maintain momentum. The usual sight-seeing attractions were proffered: the princess swam at one of the many wide river beaches 10 minutes from the center of the city and visited the Cathedral of Santa Sophia, where there is a picture of a 12th century forebear of hers—Gida Garoldovna, who married Vladimir Monomakh, a venerated Ukrainian prince. (A portent? Gida was the daughter of Harold II, the loser at Hastings in 1066.) Later, at a circus, the princess was kicked out of her reserved seats when the usher failed to recognize her, and at the local tourist souvenir shop she bought a Ukrainian blouse that would have cost her less in London .

More seriously, there was the course. A few riders, like Richard Meade, the only man on the British team, were impeccably courteous in their comments about it. "The ground is hard after a hot summer, but the course is fair," Meade said. Others disagreed, and did not care who heard them. "It's like cement," cried Peter Scott-Dunn, the team vet. "We are used to galloping at Ascot, thanks to the Queen!" Colonel R. B. (Babe) Moseley, a portly 76-year-old who climbed the steep cross-country course like a goat, pierced the air with his shooting stick and bellowed, "A typical foreign course. Why come all the way out here?"

In truth there were a couple of nasty hazards, and since the British were the first visitors on the scene it fell to them to thrash out changes with the Russians. The steeplechase course was a disused field on a collective farm surrounded by raspberry patches and Lombardy poplars. It was rock hard and full of holes, and the Russians agreed to plow the worst of it, but they had also mapped out the course to include half a mile of the Kiev -Odessa highway, a two-lane road with heavy truck traffic. After considerable wrangling, that too was altered.

Through all of this, at the Hotel Moskva, where she had a three-room suite, Anne seemed to keep her mind on her work, running up and down eight flights of stairs to stay in shape. Teammates there called her Anne, and she was distantly agreeable to them; to others she was absolutely unapproachable, with a personal detective, plus a Soviet security officer, to ensure her privacy to brood, probably upon the question of horses.

The aforementioned Doublet has had a number of ailments in the last year and may have broken down for good, leaving Anne with her current mount, Goodwill. Even for a rich royal family or an international power like the Soviet Union , which maintains large breeding farms, a good event horse is hard to find. At the top (three-day) level eventing begins with the exacting dressage test in which the horse must execute myriad dainty steps, displaying his obedience and his acquiescence in a notably un-equine activity. The next morning he is expected to turn into a veritable Bucephalus, charging along a 20-mile marathon of roads and tracks with a 10-jump steeplechase in the middle and a fiendish 29-jump cross-country course at the end. This event, known overall as cross-country, is most important and usually decides the contest. On the last day there is show jumping, but that is largely to determine whether horse and rider can still function.

The ideal event animal is well-sized and handsome for his dressage and show-jumping appearances in the ring. Anne's horse Goodwill is a big, bold animal and a fine jumper, but he is new to international competition. In the intricacies of the dressage routine, he looks about as comfortable as a mule, and since Anne is nothing if not a stylish rider, they are an ill-matched pair at the moment. At eight, however, Goodwill is just approaching his peak years as an event horse, and the princess optimistically refers to him as "a baby."

The crunch of this year's championships came at the second jump in the cross-country. Anne had not disgraced herself in dressage, placing 16th out of 43. She had improved her position immensely with a second in steeplechase, but by the time she and Goodwill arrived at the cross-country start the word was out on the second jump, and it was no place for "a baby." The approach was sharply downhill, forcing the horse to brake instead of rev up to clear poles placed six feet apart over a deep ditch. "It's a swine of a jump, coming before one has established momentum," said Marjory Comerford, an experienced British rider who had handled it well.

Nearly half the riders went down, some taking comic, cruel falls that sent them flipping through the air like inadvertent gymnasts. The wear and tear finally included the obstacle itself, and a pole and two braces had to be replaced. For 15 competitors, including the princess, Jump No. 2 was the end. Most were eliminated for the three refusals by their mounts—that is, the horse either fell in flight or declined to make the attempt. (Debbie West's Baccarat took what was unquestionably the smartest approach: he slid down the trench and tried to go under the barrier, but his innovative strategy did not save him from elimination.)