Zara Phillips driven by London memories

Zara Phillips has revealed that memories of London 2012 are driving her dream to become a two-time Olympian.

Although the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics are still just under two years away,  Minchinhampton-based Phillips readily admits that a possible place in Great Britain's eventing team is prominent on her radar.

Despite giving birth to her first child - daughter Mia - only eight months ago, Phillips' return to competitive action this season culminated in a silver medal-winning team performance alongside Great Britain colleagues William Fox-Pitt, Tina Cook and Harry Meade at the recent Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

Phillips, The Queen's granddaughter, also finished 11th individually following a superb performance aboard High Kingdom across unforgiving cross-country terrain in Haras du Pin, and then delivering a showjumping clear round watched by a capacity 20,000 crowd at Caen's Stade D'Ornano.

Her scream of delight as she went through the finish in Caen underlined not only what it meant, but confirmed that when on form with a top-quality horse, there are few better or more consistent performers.

Phillips' riding career is highlighted through a collection of seven Olympic, World and European medals - four of them gold - and dominated by her being crowned world individual champion in Germany eight years ago with the great Toytown.

The appetite for success remains, and having won Olympic team silver in London, the prospect of Rio is an enticing one.

"I hope so," Phillips told Press Association Sport.

"You definitely come out of an Olympics and go 'yeah, I want to do another one. Let's do it again.'

"I think a lot of this horse, I really do. Hopefully, we can stay in the team and at championship level.

"We will come out next year and see how the horses are. You don't really find out until you bring them back in and start the work again. Touch wood, hopefully everything will be all good.

"He is a great jumper and getting stronger and stronger in the dressage. He's great on the course, very focused, and if you point him in the right direction he is pretty willing, as everyone saw at the World Games."

Despite returning to competitive eventing barely two months before the team was announced, Phillips not only did enough to secure World Games selection, she also revelled in the responsibility of being Great Britain pathfinder as first rider into the dressage arena and on cross-country.

Only nine combinations from 91 starters went quicker than Phillips and High Kingdom over a cross-country track so demanding that stamina-sapping soft going meant no rider threatened the optimum time allowed.

"It was a tough competition, but that's what you want when you go to a world championship," Phillips, a Land Rover ambassador, added.

"I was ecstatic with my horse. He was great all week, and I was happy to go first cross-country because you can just go out there and ride it.

"You had to make sure you had enough legs to get home. He gallops, and normally you would think about stepping up a few gears, but they couldn't really do that. If you did, you definitely wouldn't have got home.

"He was great with the ground. He helped me out, and then on the last day he jumped fantastically in the showjumping.

"It (showjumping) was probably a mixture of everything, like being back in the world championships and getting back (to top level), which was hard work, and him proving that he was capable of getting a double clear.

"I think they (selectors) would always have wanted to take the horse. It was just whether we were back to where we had left off. That was the bit we had to get right, to get him back to top level again.

"It was fine-tuning and remembering what we had done before to get back to where we were."

High Kingdom is owned by multi-millionaire Trevor Hemmings - his equine portfolio features ownership of Grand National winners Hedgehunter and Ballabriggs - and Phillips has been thrilled by the horse's progress.

She hopes he can remain being part of a British team determined to close the gap on current Olympic, World and European champions Germany as the Rio build-up continues with next year's European Championships at Blair Castle in Scotland.

"His early career wouldn't be great to look at results-wise," she said. "There would be a little run-out or something, and he can be quite a monkey, but every year he has got better and better.

"He is a proper worker. He's not flash, but he really works and just tries and tries.

"Obviously, their (Germany's) dressage is fantastic and their horses jump. We've just got to get close enough to them so that when the jumping really counts on cross-country we can hopefully get in front of them.

"The World Games cross-country, Badminton cross-country this year and Burghley, were tough. Hopefully, we can keep having proper tracks like that because that's what the sport is about."