Mark Phillips
1948 – · Generation XXXVIII · Olympic equestrian
Captain Mark Phillips is an Olympic champion horseman and the first husband of Anne, Princess Royal. He was born on 22 September 1948, the son of Major Peter Phillips and Anne Tiarks, and was educated at Marlborough College and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. In 1969 he was commissioned into the 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards, and he left the Army in 1978 as a captain, a rank he still uses, as retired cavalry officers who work with horses customarily do.
He was a member of the British three-day event teams that took the world title in 1970, the European title in 1971 and Olympic gold in 1972, and he took team silver at the 1988 Olympics. He won the Badminton Horse Trials four times. Riding brought him together with Princess Anne, Elizabeth II’s only daughter, and they married at Westminster Abbey on 14 November 1973. Their children are Peter, born in 1977, and Zara, born in 1981, who won Olympic team silver herself in 2012.
Anne and Mark Phillips separated in 1989 and divorced in 1992. In 1997 he married the American dressage rider Sandy Pflueger, and their daughter Stephanie was born that year. That marriage also ended in separation. He has remained a leading figure in eventing, as a course designer, a columnist for Horse & Hound and Chef d’Equipe of the United States eventing team, and in 2025 he designed the cross-country course for the European Eventing Championships.
Place in the family
- Mark Phillips married Anne, Princess Royal, a daughter of Queen Elizabeth II.
- The archive records 7 of his descendants, across 2 generations.
Partners
- Married Anne, Princess Royal (1950 – ) in 1973; the marriage was dissolved in 1992 — 2 children together
Children
- Peter Phillips (1977 – )
- Zara Tindall (1981 – )
Life
- 1948 — Born
- 1973 — Married Anne, Princess Royal
- 1992 — Separated from Anne, Princess Royal
Sources
- Mark Phillips · Wikipedia
- Anne, Princess Royal · Wikipedia