Smash hit

There is a fresh competitive edge in the c even the dinner-table settings are regularly mixed up so that the old and the new sit together.

“We are making them feel young again,” says Zara. She has the devil in her eye. The laughter rolls, but then she adds: “It’s a dangerous sport, and it has to be dangerous, but because of that there’s always people looking out for one another. They pass knowledge on.”

Anne was European champion at 21 and no doubt on a lot less hourly concentration than her daughter practises at Gatcombe on her horse Toytown. The countless hours’ instruction Zara has gained on her parents’ West Country estate, perfecting dressage under Bettina Hoy, will have particular resonance at Blenheim. Hoy is riding for Germany against her pupil.

It was thanks to her dressage that Zara edged out her three “junior” companions for the team place. Her cross-country is as daring and balanced as it needs to be and as you would expect from her parentage. Show-jumping is her weakness and the focus of much of her training at Waresley.

“Everybody assumes I want to achieve what my parents did,” she says again, “but that was more than 20 years ago.” There is another hint of that independence that the Prince of Wales, her uncle, possibly had in mind when he suggested the name Zara — Greek for “bright as the dawn”. She appreciates how lucky she has been to escape serious injury, despite being knocked unconscious in a fall during trials in Dorset earlier this month.

Rolling her Land Rover a few years back and emerging even from that unscathed, she might be blessed. But if you talk to Zara about privilege, about the image of silver spoons in eventing, she cuts you down with that withering stare. Privilege, for her, is the access to people who have the knowledge that is essential to getting to the top — but being the one who journalists and television crews queue up to talk to, mostly on the lines of the Hello! or OK! magazines’ fascination with her love life or her courtship of Tindall, visibly peeves her.

She lives with the England centre in a cottage on the Gatcombe estate. They have been together for two years since meeting in Sydney just after England beat Australia in the rugby World Cup in November 2003, but only moved in together a few months ago. They are clearly happy in each other’s company and speculation has been rife for months that an engagement is in the air. The point about belonging to the elite squad is that she feels she belongs there, that she earns respect and friendship among others of like mind.

For her, the privilege is taking part and being accepted for herself. Her mother was the BBC sports personality of the year in 1971 after winning the individual crown at the European three-day event. Zara Anne Elizabeth Phillips regards that as another era; another time in a sport forever setting new standards.

Zara is trying to lead a life in her own fashion. Her objective is to be an equal member of the team, whose values are set out in a book prepared for every team rider, groom and support staff member. “Honesty, integrity, loyalty and confidentiality — to each other, to the team” is written in that private handbook by the team commissar.

There is advice on how to deal with the media, intriguing advice given the sometimes risqué interaction that the four youngest team members have just demonstrated during our hour on the lawn.

But the request for a photograph — girl and horse — brings a mild rebuke from Zara: “I should have notice of such a requirement,” she chides. “I need a hairdresser.” The photography is interrupted.

The handbook, written by Yogi Breisner, the GB team manager, stipulates, “We do not use any mobile phones during any training sessions or team meetings.” The mobile that rings is his and the request is for a few minutes on air, over the phone, from a radio company: “Zara, are there any plans in the pipeline for you to marry. . .?”

She answers politely, precisely, briskly, and hands the mobile back before dashing off to discuss something with Pippa Funnell, the senior rider whom she has replaced. Probably trying to make the old champion feel young again.