Riding instructor, 26, who suffered horror horseback accident at country hotel is suing for £200,000

A riding instructor who had a horror horseback accident at a top country hotel where Prince Harry spent the night before his wedding is suing for £200,000.

Katie Haigh, 26, has gone to the High Court to seek damages over the impact of her accident at the Coworth Park hotel – which has extensive royal connections.

Ms Haigh sustained brain injuries in the incident which happened after a horse bolted during a lesson she was giving in wet weather.

She is seeking damages from the five-star hotel in Surrey, which is home to the Guards Polo Club.

The hotel has filed a defence and is expected to contest the claim.

As well as being the venue he chose to spend the night before his wedding to Meghan Markle in 2018, Harry and his older brother Prince William frequently played polo in the grounds of the elegant Georgian hotel.

Ms Haigh sustained her life-changing injuries on a wet day in December 2019.

She was giving a lesson, riding a palomino horse called Soda, as she tried to teach a beginner rider to rise at the trot, when her horse suddenly shot forward uncontrollably and bolted, according to her claim.

She says that Soda was very fresh, and the pair were riding on a track where the horses were used to being exercised at canter, before he galloped off.

Ms Haigh, who was born without a right foot and wears a prosthetic, soon lost her left stirrup and, worried that the pupil’s horse Enzo might follow and that Soda would head for a tarmac area or jump a fence, she decided to deliberately come off the horse on the rubber track, and fell at high speed.

Her injuries included a moderate to severe traumatic brain injury, injuries to her spleen and lungs, amnesia, and cognitive difficulties which means she cannot form new memories day to day, she says. 

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This stops her from living independently, and she also has problems with fine motor skills, struggles to find the right words and to multi-task, and suffers with fatigue, stress and anxiety. Her intellect is not affected.

The accident happened on December 12 2019 and the grass area the hotel usually used for teaching had been waterlogged, she says.

Now Ms Haigh, of Sanderstead, Surrey, accuses Coworth Park of negligence and of breaching its strict liability duty under the Animals Act 1971.

She accuses the hotel of negligently requiring her to ride an unsuitable horse with a propensity to bolt, failing to heed her concerns about the horse’s safety, failing to properly exercise horses so that staff had to ride fresh horses, and failing to exercise Soda, a 16hh thirteen-year-old mare, in the week of the accident.

The hotel negligently failed to provide a suitable and safe track to teach beginners, so that they had to be taught on the oval track. This meant she had to teach on an area the horses recognised as their canter or gallop track with experienced riders, failed to properly assess the risks, and failed to have a safe place and system of work, she says.

Ms Haigh, who had joined the hotel as an equestrian assistant in September 2019, also accuses the hotel of causing her to carry out an inherently dangerous task in telling her to take a lesson the way she did with Soda, failing to take adequate care for her safety, and exposing her to an unnecessary risk of injury.

She also says that under the Animals Act, the hotel is strictly liable to her, as the damage she suffered was likely to be severe when caused by the horse, and that whenever a horse bolts it is likely that the rider will be thrown off and the damage severe.

Either Soda was unusually prone to bolt, or she bolted because she was fresh because of lack of exercise, she claims.

Ms Haigh is seeking damages and provisional damages allowing her to return to court for more compensation if she develops epilepsy as a result of her head injury.

Afternoon tea at the luxury hotel costs £55 per person, and rooms cost from £630 a night.

The hotel has been contacted for comment.