WORCESTER dressage champion Zoe Sleigh hopes to combine working hard for her Olympic dream and opening a new yard.

It was a freestyle debut win for the 24-year-old, of Hallow, with her mother Christine Sleigh’s Fantastic Light in the Superflex Intermediate I Music Freestyle in front of a capacity Hartpury crowd at the NAF five star winter dressage championships.

Zoe, who was a pupil at Kings School, Worcester, and Malvern College, has revealed that she is opening her new training yard in the next few weeks which will help fund her Olympic dream in the future.

“My success has spurred me on to work even harder and achieve my goal of representing Great Britain in the Olympic Games,”

said Zoe, who was part of the lottery-funded world-class development squad.

“The yard will be opening in the next few weeks and I hope I can attract a lot of business as I am already a qualified dressage trainer.I have 15 stables and an indoor school.”

Speaking after her win, Zoe said: “I was really pleased with Fantastic Light, especially the trot work. It’s the first time I’ve ridden to music at Inter level and we only got my CD last week!

“I used Abigail Todd and sent her a video and from that she put something together which really suits him.

“I came here not really knowing what to expect or what he’d do.

He’s never been to such a big indoor venue but he dealt with the crowd brilliantly – I’m so proud of him.”

Zoe was quick to praise trainer Michael Eilberg and said: “He’s always been so good with this horse and knows him well.”

Alice Peternell with Surprise, owned by Ann Wilson, had an early draw and made the most of it to take a healthy lead with a score in that all-important 70per cent-plus zone.

But then crowd favourite Matt Hicks came along to steal the lead with a fantastic 72.54 per cent with Anne Marie Dolan and his own Talent III.

It was to be a short-lived time at the top as Zoe came in for her first ever Inter Ifreestyle.

She rose to the occasion and 72.63 per cent was the score.It wasn’t a unanimous judges’ decision but the average score gave her the edge and ultimately the victory.

Others came into the electric arena and gave it their all, with Lesley Peyton-Gilbert coming closest on Woodcroft Garuda K on 72.25 per cent.

Runner-up Matt Hicks, of Whitchurch in Hampshire, praised Talent III.

He said: “He was brilliant and I’m really thrilled with how he went.

“I was tired by the time I rode him last night but tonight, I could let fly and he responded to it.Ilike to think of us both as a pair of diesel engines and we take a bit of warming up and stoking!”

The NAF five star winter dressage championships is the culmination of the British dressage winter competition season.

Almost 800 competitors rode over the five days of competition to decide national championships at 40 different levels, from preliminary to intermediate I.