Zara Anne Elizabeth Phillips MBE is a British equestrian and the second-eldest grandchild
of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
Zara Phillips is the second child and only daughter from the marriage of Anne, Princess
Royal and her first husband, Captain Mark Phillips.
She is 15th in the line of succession.
She is married to ex-England rugby union player Mike Tindall, and whilst she continues to
use her maiden name professionally, socially she is formally styled Mrs Michael Tindall
MBE.
Phillips won the Eventing World Championship in Aachen in 2006.
The same year she was voted 2006 BBC Sports Personality of the Year by the British viewing
public.
She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2007 New Year's Honours
List for her services to equestrianism.
In 2012, she carried an Olympic flame at Cheltenham Racecourse on her horse Toytown.
As a member of the Great Britain Eventing Team, she won a Silver Medal at the London
2012 Olympics and was presented with her medal by her mother.
Early life and education Zara Phillips was born on 15 May 1981 at St
Mary's Hospital, Paddington in west London.
She was baptised Zara Anne Elizabeth Phillips on 27 July 1981, and her first name was suggested
by her uncle, the Prince of Wales.
Her godparents were: her maternal uncle, Prince Andrew; the Countess of Lichfield; Helen,
Lady Stewart; Andrew Parker Bowles; and Hugh Thomas.
Zara herself is godmother to Prince George of Cambridge.
Phillips has an older brother, Peter Phillips and two half-sisters, Felicity Tonkins and
Stephanie Phillips, born 2 October 1997 from her father's second marriage to Sandy Pflueger.
The children of the Princess Royal do not hold any royal or noble title.
They are not entitled to royal status by right of birth, as they are the grandchildren of
a monarch in the female line, and their father declined a title in his own right.
As a child she and her brother attended Trooping the Colour and a few other royal events with
their mother.
Phillips went to Beaudesert Park School in Stroud, Gloucestershire, and Port Regis School
in Shaftesbury, Dorset, before following other members of the Royal Family by attending Gordonstoun
School in Moray, Scotland.
During her schooldays, Phillips excelled at many sporting activities, representing her
schools in hockey, athletics and gymnastics.
She was also successful academically, scoring 11 GCSEs from A* to C and a B and C in her
A-levels.
She later qualified as a physiotherapist specialising in equine physiotherapy, from the University
of Exeter.
Marriage and children On 21 December 2010, Buckingham Palace announced
her engagement to rugby union player Mike Tindall, who plays for Premiership side Gloucester
and the England national team.
She lives with Tindall at their home in Gloucestershire.
The couple met during England's Rugby World Cup-winning campaign in Australia in 2003.
Their wedding was held on 30 July 2011 at the Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The bride wore a Stewart Parvin dress and the Meander tiara.
This tiara belonged to her great-grandmother, Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark.
It was a tiara that her mother also wore.
On 8 July 2013, it was announced by Buckingham Palace that Phillips and Tindall were expecting
their first child.
With her husband present, Phillips gave birth to a daughter, Mia Grace Tindall, on 17 January
2014 at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital.
She is 16th in the line of succession.
Phillips has hopes of raising her daughter to be athletic.
As Phillips herself is a public figure, appearances of her daughter are also often noted.
Contrary to rumour, she has not hired a nanny.
Equestrian Following in both her parents' footsteps,
Phillips is an accomplished equestrian.
In June 2003, she announced that she had secured a sponsorship deal with Cantor Index, a leading
company in spread betting, to help cover the costs of her equestrian career.
Riding her horse Toytown, she collected individual and team gold medals at the 2005 European
Eventing Championship in Blenheim, and individual gold and team silver medals at the 2006 FEI
World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany, making her the reigning Eventing World Champion
until 2010.
Despite winning team gold at the 2007 European Eventing Championships in Italy, she failed
to defend her individual title after a problem in the show-jumping phase of the competition.
The British Olympic Association announced that Phillips would be riding Toytown for
the British equestrian team at the Beijing Olympic Games 2008 in Hong Kong.
However, an injury sustained by Toytown during training led to her being forced to withdraw
from the team.
Zara previously missed the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, when Toytown suffered a similar
injury during training.
On 25 October 2008, she fell from her horse, Tsunami II, at the 15th fence of a cross-country
event at Pau, France, and broke her right collarbone.
The horse broke its neck after it had tipped over the hedge and was put down.
On 11 June 2012, Phillips was announced as being a part of the British Equestrian team
at the 2012 London Olympic Games.
She competed in the 2012 Olympics on her new horse, High Kingdom, where she won silver
in the team eventing.
Her medal was presented by her mother, Princess Anne.
Philips finished 2nd at Luhmühlen Horse Trials 2013, on her top horse High Kingdom.
Charitable engagements Phillips supports many charitable causes.
In 2003, she and her mother took part in the first UK double ship-naming ceremony in Southampton.
The Princess Royal named the P&O Cruises liner Oceana, and Phillips named its sister ship
Adonia.
She frequently attends various events for charity and has taken to supporting certain
causes herself, mainly for spinal injuries, equestrian charities and children's causes.
In 2005, she auctioned one of her evening gowns to raise money for tsunami relief.
She also undertook a visit to New Zealand in her role as patron of The Catwalk Trust.
From 1998 to 2005, she served as the president of Club 16-24, a group which encourages young
people to take an interest in racing.
She is linked to INSPIRE, the Salisbury based medical research charity which helps to improve
the quality of life of people with spinal cord injuries, and Sargent Cancer Care for
Children, the UK's leading children's cancer charity.
She appears at events for The Caudwell Charitable Trust, which is targeted at children with
special needs, disabilities and serious illnesses.
In 2006, she took part in a special charity day for Cantor Index, whose staff were killed
in the 11 September 2001 attacks.
In 2007, she became patron of the Mark Davies Injured Riders Fund.
To help with Sport Relief 2008, she posed for her first official royal portrait by artist
Jack Vettriano.
In 2009, she attended a celebrity poker tournament in Monaco in aid of Darfur, Sudan.
In September 2010, she attended the 2012 London Olympic Ball alongside cousin Prince Harry
of Wales.
In October of the same year she attended another celebrity poker tournament, this time in London,
in aid of Cancer Research UK, of which she is Royal Patron.
In 2011 she auctioned another evening gown, this time in aide of the Christchurch, New
Zealand appeal, with the gown raising £22,000.
In 2012 she attended various events marking her grandmother's Diamond Jubilee, although
she missed the flotilla due to her commitments with the 2012 Olympics.
In 2013, she visited the Stroud Maternity Ward, where she gave birth in 2014, to celebrate
their 60th anniversary.
In the same year she attended the Chelsea Flower Show alongside her grandmother The
Queen.
In 2014, Zara lent her support to the #bringbackourgirls campaign that United States First Lady Michelle
Obama started.
Clothing design
In 2009, it was announced that Phillips would be designing her own range of equestrian clothing
for Musto Outdoor Clothing.
The range is named ZP176 after the team number Zara was given when she first represented
her country.
The range was officially launched in July 2010.
Honours and arms See also List of honours of the British Royal
Family by country 1 January 2007: Member of the Order of the
British Empire Ancestry
References
External links Zara Phillips at the Internet Movie Database
Debrett's People of Today