'You’re not getting any help and you need to produce results' - Zara Tindall opens up on Princess Anne and Mark Phillips' parenting style
According to her, they were firm when she told them she wanted to follow in their footsteps and pursue an equestrian career
Being a working royal was never on the cards for Zara Tindall and as the daughter of two professional equestrians it's no surprise that she turned to horses as a potential carer. However, whilst some parents might be endlessly supportive, Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips know what it takes and took a tough love approach.
"When I was about to leave school - and I had a great last couple of years at school and didn't do very much work; I played lots of sport - and I then thought, I'll just see if I'm any good at it," Zara explained on a recent episode of the Talk Horse podcast. "You know, riding a horse, try and find something that could maybe go all the way."
Anne and Mark didn't try to dissuade her but they told her, "You have to do it properly. And this is how it's going to work. And you're not getting any help and you need to produce results".
Just because Zara was their daughter and a royal didn't mean she was going to get special treatment and this is something that she's so grateful for. Zara and her brother Peter Phillips appeared on the Anne: The Princess Royal at 70 documentary in 2020 and explained that they'd been raised knowing they'd need to make their own way.
"We were always brought up on the understanding that we were going to have to go to work," said Peter. "We were going to have to go out and earn our living, regardless of the fact of who our grandmother was or who our mother was."
Zara added, "I think it made us fight harder as well. To try and be as successful as we could be. So I definitely, you know, we're very grateful to not give us a title anyway."
She took Anne and Mark's words to heart and certainly has produced "results". At the 2012 Olympic Games Zara was part of the equestrian team that won silver and received her medal from the Princess Royal herself. Her dad Mark is an Olympic gold and silver medalist and he was particularly "tough" when it came to her training techniques.
"Mum's very relaxed," Zara said. "She's like, 'Just, you know, just do what you do'", whilst Mark was always making suggestions.
"Very rarely you would get a, 'Yeah, that was good', out of him. So it was always striving to try and get that comment. He was a tough coach," she explained, revealing she's trying "not to be quite that bad" with her children Mia, Lena and Lucas.
The love of horse riding has definitely been passed down the generations and the tough love approach clearly inspired Zara Tindall to throw herself into following in her parents' footsteps. Her mother recognises her commitment and on the Anne: The Princess Royal at 70 documentary she praised the way Zara went about things.
"Zara was always a natural and it was really a question of whether she felt that was something she really wanted to do, and she did and she was very thorough and applied herself to it. So she was quite rightly very successful," the Princess Royal said.
