Equestrian: Days of excess no more as Todd eyes Tokyo

Mark Todd is attempting to win his sixth Burghley title this weekend, 38 years after first contesting the event. Photo / Libby Law

The world of equestrian sport still enjoys something of a reputation, no doubt partly attributable to breathless Jilly Cooper novels, of wild hedonism and excess. All those jodhpurs and heaving breeches and champagne and stately homes.

Sir Mark Todd, New Zealand's greatest eventer, insists the reputation is misguided. Or certainly outdated. Todd should know. The 61-year-old enjoys something of a reputation himself within the world of equestrianism. If not Rupert Campbell-Black - the smouldering, caddish star of Cooper's series of romance novels - then definitely the life and soul of the party.

"I don't know how I got that reputation," he smiles.

Legend has it Todd was once found by the chief executive of New Zealand's governing body running naked down a street in Athens after a night out at the 2004 Olympics. He laughs. Now 62, and with a tabloid sting behind him, Todd insists his days of wild partying are over.

"I don't know," he says. "Maybe the young still do it. But I can't perform the next day if I've had too hard a night."

But it got pretty wild back in the day?

"Well, it was all much more amateur back then. I think most sports have got way more professional, haven't they? And we have, too. I mean, we used to perform with hangovers most of the time. But now, it's just way more professional. And if you want to be competitive, it does affect your judgment."

We're at the Burghley Horse Trials, in the bucolic surrounds of Burghley House, and Todd is driving me around the cross-country course in a Land Rover provided by his sponsors.

A seven-time Olympian and twice an Olympic gold medallist, Todd will this weekend attempt to win his sixth Burghley title, 38 years after he went for his first. It is a gruelling event for a rider now in his seventh decade, but Todd shows no sign of wanting to hang up his spurs. His horse, Leonidas II, is 13 - "in his prime" - and you're only as old as the horse you're riding.

Tokyo 2020 remains a possibility.

"I definitely want to go to the world championships next year in America," he says. "And then we'll see. It's only two years more after that, but two years when you're 62 or 63 ... watch this space."

Don't write him off. Todd tried retiring once, after winning bronze at Sydney 2000, returning to Waikato with wife Carolyn and their two children to breed horses. But he found it overrated, eventually returning to the UK in 2008 to continue competing.

"I never thought I'd come back full-time," he says. "It was just a bit of a dare to see if I could make it back to the Olympics in six months."

He could. But it cost him his marriage. He and Carolyn separated in 2009, although they remarried in 2014 and now live together again in Wiltshire. "She is coming up later," he says as we arrive back at his motor home in the competitors' paddock where Zara Phillips and her husband Mike Tindall stop for a brief chat.

Later, they're off to Burghley House for a cocktail party.

Todd, having won best dressed man at Wednesday's "trot-up" where the competitors all parade their horses (and themselves), will no doubt be in hot demand. But he's looking forward to getting back to his motor home. "I need an early night."