Vote for The Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year

One former winner of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award has already made her excuses. Zara Phillips has sponsors’ duties to perform in Switzerland so will not be joining Lewis Hamilton, Joe Calzaghe and assorted Olympic champions in Liverpool for the crowning of one of her successors tonight.

Phillips’ apology for her absence is genuine. Sponsors have to be kept sweet in these straitened times. She would, however, be forgiven for wanting to spare herself a replay of a year she would rather forget. It was bad enough that her faithful Toytown tore a ligament in the lead-up to Beijing, ending Phillips’ Olympic dream for the second time. Far worse was the loss of two of her horses later in the season.

Phillips’ snapped collarbone was just an incidental blow at the end of an annus horribilis for both her and her long-time boyfriend Mike Tindall, the Gloucester and England centre who was drafted into the England touring party for the ritual thrashing in New Zealand in the summer only to be dropped from the 32-man squad for the autumn internationals by Martin Johnson, his old World Cup-winning captain and new England supremo. Life at the converted barn on the edge of the Gatcombe Park estate has not been a bundle of fun for either half of this sporting couple.

Phillips has repeatedly relived the fall that broke the neck of her mare Tsunami II. The fence, the 15th at the Etoiles de Pau three-day event in France, was one of the easiest on the course. She still cannot pinpoint what happened. “She must have hit the rail,” says Phillips.

“She got up but put her head down immediately, so it was obvious it was something serious. We managed to get her off the track, out of sight, and I’m glad we did because it was a chance to say goodbye to her. She’s the first horse I’ve lost and it was important to tell her that I was there. I put my hand out to her and she knew it was me. I’d had her four years, working every day all year round. That’s the whole point of our sport, building up a relationship between us and our horse, so it’s like losing a friend.”

Battered and bruised, her arm in an impromptu sling, Phillips returned home to Gatcombe Park to have a plate inserted in her shoulder. At least it dulled the pain. “It was a low moment but that wasn’t the end of it,” she says. “I’d been home two days and my racehorse was standing in the field with a broken hind leg. People kept saying it would only get better after the first one and it didn’t. I lost two horses in four days. Unfortunately, horses do get injured and have to be put down, but you can’t help blaming yourself. You think, ‘I shouldn’t have done this or that’. I’m just hoping that’s my bad year out of the way for another 10 years.”

Phillips has taken two months to speak of a season that provided such a shocking counterbalance to the triumphs of two years ago when she and Toytown won the European and world titles back-to-back. At the time, Phillips seemed slightly overwhelmed by the enormity of her achievement. One moment she was deciding whether to follow her father and mother into the equestrian arena, the next she was eclipsing them both. She wasn’t sure exactly how she had done it but the people who voted her Sports Personality of the Year seemed to appreciate her sporting success was no matter of royal decree. The Queen’s granddaughter, who had refused a royal title, had earned her own undoubted claim to fame.

Any lingering doubts about Phillips’ professional tenacity have been banished over the past six months. Disappointment at missing out on the Beijing Olympics has mulched into irritation not at her own misfortune but on behalf of Toytown.

“I couldn’t watch the Olympics,” she says with characteristic frankness. “It wasn’t in a bad way. It was just that we weren’t there and we should have been. It’s gutting because he [Toytown] won’t be in London so Beijing was his last chance, and that’s where he should have been. He’s a star.”

Toytown will turn 16 next year, a venerable age for an eventer, but Phillips is hoping that his fragile legs will carry her into the European championships in 2009 and on to a final hurrah in defence of their world title the following year.

In the meantime, when her right shoulder is strong enough, she will resume the laborious process of nurturing Toytown’s successor. Now 27, with at least two more Olympics in range, she has to complete the hardest equestrian trick of all by finding another horse with the athleticism and sheer competitive bravado of Toytown. She and Toytown grew together - it was touch and go who matured first - but educating a young horse demands very different skills.

“Not every horse is like Toytown, so I have to be more versatile,” she says. “It’s what we’re doing every day, 10 months a year, trying to find the best horse for a partnership. It’s difficult because you’re more experienced now but you have to take yourself back to the lower levels, learn about the horse and grow together again. A lot can go wrong in the time between finding a horse with potential and getting them to the top. But I enjoy it. It’s different.”

With the London Games a speck in the distance, Phillips is already sorting out her potential Olympians. She has bought a new horse to supplement the three younger ones she has been bringing through from her own stable. If any one of them is going to be ready for Greenwich Park in the summer of 2012, they will need to be competitive at the big events in the next couple of years, so there is little time to lose. Much to Phillips’ frustration, her shoulder is taking its time to recover full movement and strength. The state of her confidence will not be known until the start of next season, but Phillips has learnt from the laid-back Tindall how to channel her competitive spirit more productively; the tantrums have been replaced by a moody silence. “When you experience disappointment again, you react very differently from when it happened the first time,” she says. “I used to need a bit of time to myself to think about it and be annoyed with myself. Now I would pick that time. I don’t talk very much.”

Bright moments did lighten the gloom: a Royal Ascot winner for Tindall’s racing syndicate, a rare chance of a holiday together. By rights, Tindall will be back playing for England in the RBS Six Nations and Phillips will regain her European title this coming summer, then retain her world title the following year. She would sacrifice both, however, for a tilt at winning a gold medal at her home Olympics. “When you have bad experiences, there is nothing you can do about them, so the pressure is taken off you,” she adds. “Nobody deserves bad luck. That’s what happens. You have to move on. Hopefully, we’ll be back.”

Why Zara wants to forget 2008

MARCH Boyfriend Mike Tindall fails a breath test the morning after the two had been at the Cheltenham Festival. Horse Toytown is withdrawn from the World Cup qualifier in Fontainebleau

APRIL A fall from Secret Legacy in a three-day event in Compiegne forces her to retire from the competition

MAY A good showing at Badminton is followed by her inclusion in Britain’s three-day event Olympic team

JUNE She is eliminated after a fall during the Irish Eventing World Cup qualifier. An injury to Toytown then rules the pair out of the Olympics

SEPTEMBER Her involvement at Burghley ends prematurely when she falls off Ardfield Magic Star after hitting a fence on the cross-country course

OCTOBER Breaks her collarbone in a fall in France. Her horse, Tsunami II, has to be put down

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