安妮公主和丈夫Mark Phillips（也是一名世界級騎手），從一開始就希望他們的女兒可以遠離王室的束縛和公眾干擾，所以他們決定不給女兒公主的稱號。但無論是否被叫做公主，Zara Philips都繼承了父母的馬術才能，并且青出于藍。

李殊 選注

Zara Phillips, born on 15 May 1981, is the second child and only daughter of Princess Anne. Daughter Zara follows in the footsteps of Britain’s great sportswoman and royal[1], Princess Anne.

Anne has always tried to show that she could go beyond the traditional role that members of the royal family are supposed to perform. She is generally recognised as the hardest working of the royal family—she is patron of over 220 organisations and carries out an average of two or three official engagements per day.[2] In addition to all of this, she is one of the UK’s most accomplished sportswomen, having won many honours in the equestrian event.[3]

Equestrian event involves several stages, each of which demonstrates mastery of a different type of horse riding. There are three main stages in eventing, not including the inspection stage in which a veterinarian[4] inspects the horse for general health. In the first stage, called dressage[5], the rider coaches the horse through an exact sequence of movements. Dressage is sometimes called ‘horse ballet’. The second and third stages, cross-country and show jumping, involve jumping over obstacles which are either natural (stone walls, streams) or artificially built.

Keen to free her daughter from the scrutiny and public attention that goes with being a royal, Anne and her husband Mark Phillips, also a world-class rider, decided not to give their children royal titles.[6] But princess or no, Zara Phillips continues the family legacy of equestrian success—she collected individual and team gold metals at the 2005 European Eventing Championships and individual gold and team silver metals at the 2006 FEI World Equestrian Games. Zara is, of course, eyeing up 2012 (she will be riding with a different horse in future competitions), but in the meantime is keeping busy pushing the boundaries of a royal’s role. She has recently become the first member of the royal family to appear in an advertisement (for Land Rover[7]), and she will be the first to appear in a reality television show, a ballroom dancing competition show on the BBC.

Vocabulary

1. royal: 〈口〉王室成員。

2. patron: 贊助者；carry out: 執(zhí)行，履行；engagement: 約定。

3. accomplished: 有才華的，有造詣的；equestrian: 騎馬的，騎術的。

4. veterinarian: 獸醫(yī)。

5. dressage: 花式騎術比賽。

6. keen: 渴望的，熱切的；scrutiny: 監(jiān)視，監(jiān)督。

7. Land Rover: 陸虎，是世界著名的英國越野車品牌。

（來源：英語學習雜志）