Regal Realm

LUCINDA GREEN has had many beloved champions. Six Badminton victors, seven gold and five silver-medal winners. And while they all had their fortes and foibles, Regal Realm – her fifth Badminton winner and 1982 world champion – is the horse she puts “in the position of the most talented of all”.

Regal Realm’s story begins 10,000 miles away from the scenes of his great victories, under the fierce Australian sun on the dusty Comboglong cattle station in New South Wales. Bar the brief and rather brutal invasion of humans into his life for branding and castration, the young thoroughbred spent the first two years of his life almost untouched, roaming the vast outback in search of food and water, and developing the tough, independent spirit that would later become his hallmark.

Headstrong and defiant when it came to being broken in, Regal Realm – nicknamed Poncho – soon became the one stock horse that all the jackaroos wanted to ride. He was quick, nimble and incredibly sure-footed, pounding over the iron ground for up to 10 hours a day, seven days a week.

While Poncho was