Car crash kills ‘Olympic’ horse, ending riders team GB hopes

Published: 02:13 EDT, 12 October 2026 | Updated: 02:13 EDT, 12 October 2026

A talented teenage horsewoman’s dreams are in tatters after a car crashed into her on a Cotswolds village lane – leaving her elite prizewinning horse dead. Tinks Walker, 17, a great hope for British equestrian sports, went headfirst through the car’s windscreen and came round to find her star gelding, Benny, dying in the road. The accident shattered the youngster’s hopes of selection for Great Britain in the Eventing European Championships for Young Riders next year. Now her family want justice after Wiltshire Police decided not to prosecute the driver – despite concluding there was sufficient evidence. The family have launched their own legal proceedings for the injuries to Tinks and for the value of 10-year-old Benny, said to be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. ‘He was the equine equivalent of an Olympian,’ said Tinks, who has been riding horses since she was a toddler. On April 2 this year, Tinks took the thoroughbred, Killossery Kaptain – known as Benny – out for an early morning ride with Lily, a two-star event horse, being ‘led’ by them.

As they walked along a country lane about a mile from her family home, near Malmesbury, Wiltshire, she saw a car ‘flying around the curve in the road ahead of me’, she told police. She pulled Benny and Lily onto a grass verge but the approaching car did not slow down, she said. ‘This made me panic…seeing the car barrelling directly towards me. ‘I was on the grass, off the road. I thought to myself “has she seen me or not?”. I felt totally powerless and the next thing was I felt an impact. I woke up on the floor.

‘It felt like I had been beaten up.’ Her account to police continued: ‘I saw Benny lying on the floor. Benny did try and get up once – but struggled to do so and ultimately fell back down to the floor. He did not try and stand up again.’ Benny was a four-star competition horse previously ridden by Team GB double Olympic gold medal winner Laura Collett, the current European Eventing Champion. It was decided to pass him to Tinks to develop a next-generation partnership for Team GB.

The A Level pupil trained with him every day, often rising at 4am to fit in her studies. Benny’s injuries from the crash were so severe, he was put down at the roadside by a vet. Tinks told the Mail: ‘It was awful. I was completely helpless. There was nothing I could do. Every day I’ve thought about it. When I close my eyes, I see it happening. ‘Benny was my best friend. He taught me things that no other horse ever had. He taught me that making mistakes was okay.’ Tinks’s mother, Netia Walker, added: ‘He was the Brad Pitt of horses to us.

He came here and was worshipped. He was the kindest horse you would ever come across. He would have been the most amazing horse for Tinks, and it is just horrific. ‘My daughter could have been killed, we have lost her best horse and have another one that is so traumatised we can’t ride her on the roads.’ After a five-month inquiry, Wiltshire Police wrote to Tinks and said that while ‘there is sufficient evidence to bring a prosecution against the alleged offending driver’, the woman had instead been offered a ‘safe and considerate driving course’ to ‘re-educate’ her.

The decision has left the family furious. Now Tinks’s solicitor Cathryn Godfrey, of Irwin Mitchell, has begun the process of suing the driver. Another solicitor, Hannah Bradley, of Aria Grace Law, is acting for the owners of Benny, one of whom is Tinks’s grandmother. She is suing over the loss of the prizewinning thoroughbred, said by an independent equine valuer to have been worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Fi Rutland, the other co-owner of Benny, said: ‘The accident has devastated all of us. I have lost my pride-and-joy, it has broken all our hearts, but more importantly it has shattered a talented young girl’s dreams and aspirations. The courage she has shown is awe-inspiring.’ Meanwhile a friend of the driver told the Daily Mail she was very distressed by the terrible accident and was adamant she had been driving at low speed. A spokesman for the driver and her company, which owned the car, said: ‘We are deeply saddened by the death of Benny following this tragic accident and our thoughts are with all those affected. The incident was a terrible accident, and our team are extremely distressed by what occurred.’

As this accident is the subject of legal action, it would not be appropriate to comment further at this stage.’ Tinks and her family are being supported by the British Horse Society which is campaigning for rural drivers to slow down – warning that horses are being killed on UK roads at an alarming rate. As part of its Dead Slow campaign, it said there had been 560 horse fatalities on the roads over the past decade. Alan Hiscox, the society’s director of safety, said: ‘Tinks is absolutely devastated at what happened to Benny and she is not alone. I’ve been to see five riders this year who lost horses on the roads. The biggest trauma is often the guilt of the rider because the horse took the impact and saved them from more serious injury.’ As Tinks focuses on her recovery, she is competing in a charity race at Newbury on November 5 to raise funds for the British Horse Society and help its safety campaign. Tinks said: ‘Nothing can bring back Benny, but if we can raise awareness to make other riders safer on the roads, then maybe some small, good thing can come from this horrible tragedy.’ Tinks’s fundraising page can be found here.

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