Zara Phillips: I make ‘better decisions’ since being a mum

Britain’s Zara Phillips makes "better decisions" now she is a parent.

The 34-year-old royal – the granddaughter of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II – is a British equestrian and her husband Mike Tindall, 37, have 22-month-old daughter Mia together, which she says has made her take less risks in her career.

She said: "I think I might make bet­ter de­ci­sions now. When you are younger and less ex­pe­ri­enced, and with less around you to lose, you spend a lot of time com­pet­ing ev­ery­where, and rid­ing all sorts of horses, and go­ing to ev­ery pos­si­ble com­pe­ti­tion. Now it’s much more a case of qual­ity over quan­tity, and pick­ing the right places to run at… So maybe you think about the big­ger pic­ture more, and make more cal­cu­lated de­ci­sions."

And the blonde stunner is hoping to compete in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and added that Mike has been great at helping her prepare for it.

She told The Sunday Telegraph: Mike was at the top of his sport for a long time, so to have some­one around who un­der­stands how to pre­pare, think, train, re­lax, han­dle dis­ap­point­ment and then re­bound, is re­ally help­ful.

"Mike is very grounded, very calm in stress­ful sit­u­a­tions and gives un­com­pli­cated ad­vice. Some­times you can over­think some­thing, or get stressed over things that shouldn’t be af­fect­ing you, and Mike is good at mak­ing sure I only spend en­ergy on things I can in­flu­ence.