British equestrienne Zara Phillips — granddaughter of the Queen of England — gained our attention earlier this week, and yesterday, just hours after I declared her an Attractive Olympian over at FanHaus, she got bumped from the Olympic team.  This will be the second consecutive Olympics for which her bitch-ass horse Toytown has gotten injured and forced her to withdraw.

Zara, 27, the current world champion three day eventer, was hotly tipped to win a gold medal, but as she and Toytown were jointly selected for Great Britain's eventing team, the injury to the horse means that his rider must also be withdrawn from Beijing 2008…

[She] could well remain at the top level of her sport, and have a chance to represent Great Britain at the London Olympics in 2012. That distant hope will be no consolation at the moment however, and she is likely to require comforting from her boyfriend, England rugby international Mike Tindall, 29, at her home in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire.

Oh, this is simply terrible.  A true royal tragedy.  How will this fabulously wealthy blonde princess who's 12th in line for the British crown ever recover from the heartbreak of not being able to compete at the Olympic Games in a sport restricted solely to the upper class of society?  Will the muscular arms of her international rugby star boyfriend be enough to console her?

What's so touching about this story is that it could have happened to any of us.

Zara Phillips, who is a granddaughter of pointless figurehead British monarch Queen Elizabeth II as well an expert wearer of hats, has been selected to join England's equestrian team at the Summer Olympics in Beijing. She's also 12th in line for the throne, but first in line to captain the Olympic motorboating team.

And Zara didn’t get the job just because of her royal lineage. She did win a gold medal at last year’s World Equestrian Games. And she comes from good breeding stock – dad Mark Phillips won gold at the 1972 Munich Olympics, while mom Princess Anne won the 1971 European title and competed in the 1976 Montreal Games.

So… she's actually qualified? That's no fun and, worse still, wholly unrepresentative of what rich-people sports like equestrianism stand for. It's supposed to be all about nepotism and privilege, stupid. I don't even know what they judge in equestrian events. I just assumed two people sit on horses and whomever of the two is worth more money wins.