Zara Phillips searching for a top horse for London 2012

Forced to miss the last two Olympic games after her horse, Toytown, suffered injuries, Zara Phillips is desperately searching for a steed for London 2012.

“I'm just trying to get a good enough team together of horses for London,” she told me at a party at Kensington Palace to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Range Rover. “I'm just working away. I haven't had any horses good enough, really.”

Zara enjoyed much success with Toytown. “I'm massively lucky that I had my best horse of my life very early on,” said Zara at the soirée co-hosted by Alexandra Shulman, the editor of Vogue. “I had a lot of success with him and you only get that one horse in a lifetime.

“You get good horses, but he was unique, and now I have to find another that could be as good as him. I'm really excited for 2012. It will be awesome to ride at home, but I just have to get there first.”

In 2008, the Queen's granddaughter, 29, fell from her horse, Tsunami II, at a cross-country event in France and broke her right collarbone. The horse had broken its neck and had to be put down.