KITTY KING describes it as "one of those golden tickets" – admission to the greatest sports show on earth, writes Andrew Baldock.

And when it comes to Great Britain eventing team selection for this summer's Rio Olympics, 33-year-old King is pretty much heading the queue.

King has opted to miss next week's Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials.
"It was never my plan to enter," she said.

"Our priority has been the CIC route and preparing for selection, which we won’t know until July so we have to keep improving, consolidating what we have been working on and keep them going well in order to hopefully catch the selector’s eye." 

If she is chosen among the British quartet – smart money is on her, Pippa Funnell and William Fox-Pitt potentially filling three of those places – it would continue a prolific family sporting success story.

King's sister Charlotte Boggis represented England A in rugby union, her other sister Lucy was an international heptathlete who looked set for the 2010 Commonwealth Games until injury struck, while she also featured as one of television's Gladiators when the series was relaunched eight years ago.

And it does not stop there, with King's husband Ben a former National Hunt jockey, and her mother Jane a successful eventer whose career was highlighted by completing the daunting twin challenges of Britain's two four-star international competitions, Badminton and Burghley.

King, though, is making her own headlines, and riding with such impressive consistency aboard her top two horses Persimmon and Ceylor LAN.

She finished fourth and was leading British rider at last September's European Championships in Scotland, missing out on a bronze medal by just 0.1 of a penalty, while a prodigious strike-rate with 11-year-old Persimmon and nine-year-old Ceylor LAN has delivered 34 career wins between them.

Both horses are former British young horse champions, both have excelled at international level and both would appear to fit the bill as far as Rio selection is concerned.

"Rio is my main aim and goal this year – it has been for quite a number of years," King told Press Association Sport at her yard in the Wiltshire village of Lower Stanton St Quintin.

"But it (Rio) is still such a long way away, time-wise, in terms of horses. So many things can go wrong, or equally, go really well. We have just got to keep building and improving, and hope we do enough.

"It is my ultimate goal and dream to get one of those golden tickets, so fingers crossed.

"I have been trying to just go out and do my best with each horse. I think that is all I can do. If you worry too much about what the selectors think – how you are doing, who else might be in the running – I think you will just drive yourself mad.

"It is really competitive. To try to be one of those four riders is really tough, but I will be fighting for a spot."

King, who was the first British rider in eventing history to complete a clean sweep of representing her country and winning medals at pony, junior, young rider and senior levels, underlined at Blair Castle in the Scottish Highlands seven months ago what a talent she is.

Even being chosen as the British team's pathfinder – first-to-go on what proved a demanding cross-country course in dreadful conditions – did not faze her. She ended the Europeans with a team silver, while two of the three individual finishers in front of her were reigning Olympic champion Michael Jung and current world champion Sandra Auffarth.

"If someone had said before I went to Blair that I would get team silver, finish best of the Brits and finish fourth, I would have been absolutely over the moon," she added.

"It was a little gutting to miss bronze by 0.1 of a penalty, but I haven't beaten myself up too much about it because I was just delighted with the way my horse (Persimmon) performed.

"I learnt a bit about myself. When I was asked to go as pathfinder, I was fairly terrified by that prospect. I kind of assumed that because I was the new member of the team, they would put me somewhere in the middle, so before the event I was thinking 'would I cope, would I let everyone down?'

"But actually, it didn't bother me at all, and I really enjoyed riding first. It did me a lot of good just to believe in myself, which is something that perhaps I have lacked, that self-belief and what I can do with the horses.

"They are quite different horses. Persimmon is kind of a little terrier, he is a real fighter and will never give up, and the bigger horse (Ceylor LAN) you would think he would be a bit of a thug because he is so big, but actually he is very polite.

"I know them really well now. I've had them since they started their careers, so we've got a great partnership. They are both different, but both lovely horses."