Alice Plunkett (also known by her married name, Alice Fox-Pitt) is a former

eventer Eventing (also known as three-day eventing or horse trials) is an equestrian event where the same horse and rider combination compete against other competitors across the three disciplines of dressage, cross-country, and show jumping. This ...

and

National Hunt National Hunt Racing, also known as Jump Racing, is a form of horse racing particular to many European countries, including, but not limited to: France, Great Britain and Ireland. Jump Racing requires horses to jump over fences and ditches. In ...

jockey A jockey is someone who rides horses in horse racing or steeplechase (horse racing), steeplechase racing, primarily as a profession. The word also applies to camel riders in camel racing. The word "jockey" originated from England and was used ...

and current

presenter Presenter may refer to: People * News presenter, person who presents news during a news program * Sports commentator, an announcer who presents analysis of a sporting event * Radio personality, presenter or announcer on a radio show * Television ...

ITV Racing ''ITV Racing'' is a programme produced by ITV Sport for races shown on ITV (ITV1 and STV) or ITV4 in the United Kingdom. The programme is referred to as ''Racing on STV'' in Northern and Central Scotland. In its previous incarnation, the show ...

in the UK. She is the only female to have ridden at both

Badminton Horse Trials The Badminton Horse Trials is a five-day event, one of only seven annual Concours Complet International (CCI) Five Star events as classified by the Fédération Équestre Internationale (FEI). It takes place in May each year in the park of ...

and over the

Grand National The Grand National is a National Hunt horse race held annually at Aintree Racecourse in Aintree, Merseyside, England. First run in 1839, it ...

course at

Aintree Aintree is a village and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside, England. Historically in Lancashire, it lies between Walton and Maghull on the A59 road, northeast of Liverpool city centre. In 2011 the parish had a p ...

Riding career

Plunkett started riding at hunts, which led to riding in point to points. That, in turn, led to her riding in the 1993 Fox Hunters' Chase at Aintree, one of the two main hunter chase races in the calendar. She was aged only 19 and it was only her fifth ride on a racecourse. She rode a horse called Bold King's Hussar, bred by her grandfather and finished fourteenth. She went on to ride winners on the flat, over hurdles and fences. In her eventing career she rode at Badminton Horse Trials and also represented

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

at the European Three Day Event Championships under 21. She gave up competitive riding in 2000, but has since ridden in charity races at the

Cheltenham Festival The Cheltenham Festival is a horse racing-based meeting in the National Hunt racing calendar in the United Kingdom, with race prize money second only to the Grand National. The four-day festival takes place annually in March at Cheltenham Race ...

Broadcasting career

Plunkett was on the main Channel 4 Racing team from 2001 to 2016 and then with ITV when they took over racing coverage in 2017. In recent years she had been one of the lead presenters for

Racing coverage. She has also been the

BBC Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It broadcasts mainly news, sport, Talk show, discussion, interviews and phone-ins, and is on air 24 hours a day. It is the principal BBC radio station Broadca ...

equestrian correspondent and has hosted equestrian events for

Eurosport Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia, owned and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its WBD Sports unit, it operates two main channels—Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2—across most of its territorie ...

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British broadcasting of sports events, subscription sports channels operated by the satellite television, satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television ...

and Horse and Country. She has also presented two series of equestrian interest show ''Horse Tails'' on

Animal Planet Animal Planet (stylized in all lowercase since 2018) is an American multinational pay television channel focusing on the animal kingdom owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks unit of Warner Bros. Discovery. First established on June 1 ...

Personal life

She is married to eventer

William Fox-Pitt William Speed Lane Fox-Pitt (born 2 January 1969) is an English people, English Equestrianism, equestrian who competes in eventing. His career highlights include winning three Olympic Games, Olympic medals in the team event, with silver in 2 ...

. They have four children.

References

British television presenters British sports journalists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{UK-equestrian-bio-stub