Elizabeth Robbie, 1989

Elizabeth read Veterinary Science and has a successful career running her own veterinary practice as well as accompanying British equestrian teams to Olympic Games and Champions as British Team Vet.

Who was your greatest Clare influence and why?

I always felt extremely lucky to be at Clare - the combination of the beautiful buildings and gardens and the inspiring people within college. All the many friends I made through Clare have remained influential throughout my life in many ways. Being surrounded by brilliant and talented people, who would go on to contribute to the world in hugely varied ways. 

Elizabeth's Story

I studied Veterinary Medicine at Clare and have a very fulfilling career as a vet and also working in elite sport. I run my own clinical veterinary practice and am the British Team vet for Equestrian Eventing,  working within the UK Sport World Class Programme to prepare successful teams for Olympic Games and Championships. I am fortunate to have worked at 4 Olympic Games and with multiple gold medal winning British teams at Olympic, World and European Championships.

While at Clare I enjoyed all aspects of college life, I rowed with a great crowd of friends and was Clare Ladies Boat Club Captain, we had a fantastic club with 4 ladies eights, with the 1st and 2nd eight winning blades in the May Bumps and the 1st eight being semi finalists at Henley. I was also the Cambridge University Modern Pentathlon ladies captain and made lifelong friends from both Cambridge and Oxford clubs, including my husband who was an Oxford Pentathlete. 

The experience of organising sports clubs, encouraging membership and the detail and commitment necessary for successful performance, started the journey towards working in elite sport and with teams at Olympic level. It helped to develop skills and leadership from within, and recognise the contribution of people at all levels of a team or organisation which is necessary for success. 

University friends also inspired opportunities to travel including an expedition to Svalbard to study arctic foxes, coordinated via the Cambridge Expedition Society, and subsequent adventures around the globe. 

In my career as a vet, I’ve benefited from the thorough scientific education that Cambridge gave me and the ability to think logically around clinical cases and professional challenges. 

I think life at Clare gave me skills to juggle work, friends, fun, sport and endless other activities which has stood me in good stead for trying to do too many things at once for the rest of my life! Writing essays at 2am after returning from a party and before a rowing outing at 6am may not have been ideal but certainly meant no moments at Clare were wasted!

But it’s the time spent with friends that I remember most  - doing things together - whether work, socialising or sport, it is always the people who are the important part. We were just before the era of mobile phones, everyone stuck a piece of paper on their door where we could write notes when we were trying to find each other. I’m sure we made lots more friends because we weren’t instantly connected via phones, always missing the people we were aiming to find and ending up on nights out with a different crowd.