There aren't many movie icons or rock idols, let alone sports stars, who have been poster boys for their profession for as long as William Fox-Pitt has been for three-day events. However, after having the most successful career of any Briton in the sport and completing Badminton for the 26th time, he has declared that he is finally retiring.
This is his 40th year of eventing in a sport that can leave you physically broken, maimed or worse. Five riders died at British events in 1999 and a fall in France in 2015 left Fox-Pitt in a coma for two weeks and affected his memory for the next four months. And so longevity must be on par with its major achievements.
The 55-year-old's list of accolades is extensive. He was the first Briton to become world number 1, went to five Olympic Games and won three medals with the team, took home seven team gold medals, won six Burghleys on six different horses, two badmintons, and is the only rider who has won five of Eventing's six 'majors'.
The list of honors is so long that it is easier to list what he has not quite succeeded in, with Fox-Pitt not being able to take individual gold at Olympic, world or European level.
However, if he can pinpoint the most bizarre moment, it was when he tried to teach Madonna to drive when she was married to Guy Ritchie and living in Wiltshire.
"She Googled me and said she wanted some lessons but didn't have a horse," Fox-Pitt recalls of what he calls the most surreal phase of his life. "I asked her where she lived and she said she didn't know.
"I told her I had never heard of anyone not knowing where they lived, but she said she had only driven there and we determined it could be somewhere near Salisbury. But eventually she came to Hinton St Mary for lessons.
"I had to pinch myself regularly. We had a good relationship, she was a good learner, but she didn't always want to learn. There were days when she just wanted to go for a ride. But it was a big risk [because of who she was] so as not to fall off.
'After she built an indoor school in Ashcombe [Ritchie's home] She let me come and see her new horse. She was brave but not much of a show jumper and she fell off. I didn't know where to look. She was on the floor, not moving and I thought, 'oh my God, she's dead.' Then she came to life very quickly. And vocally.
'You can count on me. Get this s... off me'
"Then she rushed towards me. She was covered with the surface of the arena. She didn't want anyone to know she had fallen off and I said it was definitely a giveaway if she was covered from head to toe.
'Just like in situations like that, if someone isn't dead, your first instinct is to catch the horse. "Don't take the horse!" she shouted. 'You can count on me. Get this s- off me." I said, 'I can't do that,' but she said, 'Take it away from me - you get it from me, you get it from me. Do not tell anyone!' I said, 'I'm just glad you're alive'."
The way Fox-Pitt tells the story, his next most pressing concern after the horse was negotiating Madonna's use of the English language.
"I was gently dusting her, almost trying to do it without touching her," he continued. "You're not doing it right," she said. 'Do it right'. So I ended up having to wipe it off her breasts and thighs, hoping no one was looking, and thinking, 'What the hell am I doing?' It was a moment. That was the last lesson I ever gave her. I think when she divorced Guy and moved back to America, she gave up riding.
It is certainly an unexpected departure from daily practice. But speaking about his future in the sport, Fox-Pitt reveals that his decision to retire took some consideration.
"I've thought about it for a long time," he says about his retirement from the top competition. "The big dream has been there for a long time [breeding] racehorses, but I've changed my mind. I want to live a little more now. I have been going backwards for years and not accepting things in order to be able to drive. I don't want the commitment of 100 horses and 100 owners and the whole crazy life.
"I got such a kick out of eventing because it was me, my horse and my fault. If you're a trainer, the way I see it, it's you, it's your horse, but it's someone else's fault, there are more dimensions to it. When I make a mistake, I'm furious, but it's easier to live with.
"I am now increasingly involved in coaching, I am enjoying it more and more.
"I trained Team Brazil towards Paris. I have my Japanese boy Kazu Tomoto who came fourth individually in Tokyo, the worst position to finish. I was actually hoping he would do a lot of show jumps so he didn't finish fourth! He lived with that, but gained great recognition in Japan.
"I now have a number of stables available, so I am looking for someone who can come and live here and be involved at some level. I breed a few, some related to horses I have ridden."
This takes the topic beyond breeding and into the world of cloning. Fox-Pitt's best horse was Tamarillo, an Anglo-Arab gelding who might have won in Athens had he not gone lame in the cross-country phase. In 2013, his clone, Tomatillo - a horse Dolly the Sheep - was born and Fox-Pitt broke him in.
"It's interesting to see the similarities and differences between the two. Tamarillo hated men until I was on his back. Sometimes I couldn't catch him in his stable. He really saw a man as a threat. I thought, 'poor him, he's had a bad experience with a man in his life.' Jackie, my main groom, was always dealing with him and I just started working with him.
"The clone, who had never had a bad experience in his life, was identical. I completely hated men, wouldn't go near my students unless they were female. I felt guilty for blaming a man for fighting with Tam when it was only inside him.
"Tam was a gelding, the clone is a stallion. Tam was a prince, not arrogant in any way. He was quite unsure of himself, very needy. Because he's a stallion, the clone thinks he owns the world, thinks he's the best thing to ever walk the earth."
'I don't do well on a hot-headed horse'
Aside from the fact that his long legs dangled under the bellies of most of the horses he rode, the six-foot-tall rider was so one with his horses that they often seemed like one entity rather than two separate beings, and, unlike some riders, he was never defined by one type of horse. He rode geldings, mares, stallions, ex-racehorses, Anglo-Arabs, Irish hunters, warmbloods, you name it.
"I'm no good on a hot-headed horse," Fox-Pitt countered. 'I'm big, a man, I have more legs than most. They have to accept the leg. I would be realistic and know what suits me.
'When I was young I had four six-year-olds and I told Karen Dixon I thought they would all be good. She looked at me and said, 'That can't be, you're lucky if one is good.' And she was right, one went to Burghley, the rest did other jobs. So I have learned more and more quickly which horses would and would not work for me. I would have been relatively optimistic and always give a horse another day, but the longer it goes on, I know what suits me. If it's an athlete, wants the job and is on your side, as long as he has the body to say yes, it's amazing what you can produce.
He says that eventing is changing with society. "Everyone is much more concerned with the look, feel and impression than with what fits the bill and does a good job, even if they don't look like a gold medal-winning machine," he explains . "I've had my great fancy trousers - Tamarillo, Chilli Morning, Parklane Hawk - but behind them some completely Mr Joe Bloggs, normal that others might not have adopted."
Will he miss Badminton, an event attended by as many people as the Cheltenham Festival? "I will miss being fit and trained, and all for a good reason, that atmosphere," he said. 'And I'll miss it when everything was supposed to be exciting in April.
"It's going to be weird to wake up on Saturday morning and be able to sleep in." But the times I didn't play badminton, I woke up and thought. 'Thank God'. I'm a here-and-now person, not a regret person. I will enjoy watching my children, going to Paris with my Brazilians, but I will never wish I did it. That's not my mentality."
