Zara Tindall returned to competitive show jumping last weekend, two months after the birth of her second child, Lena Elizabeth. She was competing on her horse, Class Affair at the Somerford Park Horse Trials where she looked relaxed and confident. As well she might, the thirty-seven-year-old won silver at the 2012 Commonwealth Games in London, where the medal was presented to her by her mother, Princess Anne (who herself had competed at the 1976 Olympics). At this stage, there is no indication as to whether she is hoping to compete at the 2020 Olympics.
Lena is a younger sister of Mia – Zara and Mike Tindall’s first child – after the couple sadly had a couple of miscarriages. Mike has said in an interview that Mia had been a great help to them, too young to understand what was going on she would bound up to the couple demanding cuddles however they felt. When Mia was younger, Mike was still an international rugby player and going on tours, so he missed some of her growing up, though he now admits to enjoying taking her swimming and ninja tots.
It has been very clear that the troubles the couple have gone through it has strengthened the love and bond between them, and they do not worry about making very natural expressions of that closeness in public. The horse trials were not the only place they have been seen recently, as they have spent some time with the Queen at Balmoral. After competing at Somerford Park on Saturday, the couple travelled up the Balmoral and went to church with The Queen and Prince Philip.
They are, perhaps, unusual as a royal couple in that they are the only couple of The Queen’s children or grand-children to be married in Scotland, in Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh. Though both of her children were born in the local maternity ward in Stroud, and Zara has been a keen supporter of their work.