A racehorse trainer who got so drunk at a dinner party she mistakenly drove someone else’s car home before crashing it has avoided jail.

Poppy Skipper, 29, had drunk two bottles of red wine and several mojito cocktails when she decided she wanted to leave the party at a country house.

Hostess Harriet Heal and fellow guest Isabella Snell thought they had persuaded her to stay over as she was too drunk to drive, a court heard. 

But after they went to bed Skipper got in Miss Snell’s Vauxhall Adam car, seemingly confusing it with her own Vauxhall Astra.

She drove for 10 minutes before she hit a grass verge and overturned Miss Snell’s car outside a pub in Sherborne, Dorset.

She fled the scene covered in blood from a head wound and was arrested a few hours later at hospital after a police hunt with dogs.

The £6,700 car was written off and a £2,000 designer handbag belonging to Miss Snell was also damaged.

Miss Snell had left her debit card and passport in the car, leading police to believe she was the driver.

Officers turned up at her parents’ house in the early hours telling her they believed she had been injured in a crash.

But they used the ‘find my phone’ function and saw their daughter was still at the address of the dinner party in the village of Charlton Horethorne, on the Somerset-Dorset border.

Miss Snell was woken by police at 3am and then discovered her car was no longer outside and Skipper was gone.

Poppy Skipper A racehorse trainer who got so drunk at a dinner party she mistakenly drove someone else’s car home before crashing it has avoided jail.

The dinner party took place in the quiet village of Charlton Horethorne, on the Somerset-Dorset border.

Skipper was arrested at Yeovil Hospital at 3.28am but a blood sample was not taken until 9.25am.

By that point her reading was under the drink-drive limit but experts were able to back-calculate and establish at the time of the accident her blood alcohol level was probably 172mg in 100ml of blood – more than twice the drink drive limit.

Skipper, from Milborne Wick, Somerset, told police she had no memory of anything between leaving the dinner party and being in hospital the next morning.

She pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking and driving whilst unfit through drink and appeared at Bournemouth Crown Court for sentencing.

Skipper is a professional racehorse trainer and owner and keeps her horse at her grandparents’ 500 acre farm at Charlton Horethorne.

She has also been a member of the Blackmore & Sparkford Vale Hunt and was invited to the dinner party on March 28 last year by fellow equestrian and hunt follower Miss Heal.

Miss Snell, who works for NFU Mutual, was also there and met Skipper for the first time.

Laura Deuxberry, prosecuting, said: ‘This defendant arrived around 5.30pm. It was a seemingly happy evening, alcohol was consumed – cocktails and wine.

‘The recollection of Miss Snell was the defendant had at least two or three mojitos and two bottles of red wine to herself.

‘By the end of the evening she was very drunk, unsteady on her feet and slurring her words.

‘Most of the other friends left around midnight. She said she was going to drive and they persuaded her to stay over and told her she was too intoxicated.

‘That discussion was slightly heated but she eventually agreed.

‘Miss Snell and Miss Heal went to sleep in one room and she was in another. They understood she had gone to sleep and that was that.

‘She had her own car there so it is really speculation why she took Miss Snell’s but maybe in her intoxicated state she took the wrong vehicle.’

The prosecutor said that ‘due to her drunken state’ she then crashed the car outside the Mermaid pub, 4.3miles from where the car had been parked.

‘It appeared from marks she left the road at the traffic lights, hit the grass verge and overturned,’ she told the court. 

‘The landlady ran outside to see what had happened. The car was on its side. She looked inside the vehicle to see one female covered in blood, as was the car.

‘Others went to her aid and tried to free her from the car.

‘Eventually she was able to climb out and began to walk off. She said to the landlady she could not be linked to the vehicle. She was stumbling and her speech was slurred.

‘They tried to right the car and a handbag fell out with a debit card and passport in it. It was given to police assuming that was who had exited the vehicle.

‘It in fact belonged to Miss Snell who had left her bag in the car.’

Miss Deuxberry said Skipper admitted to Miss Heal she had taken the car but had no idea why, and asked for Miss Snell’s number so she could ‘put it right and apologise’.

The loss was dealt with by insurers but Miss Snell was left hundreds of pounds out of pocket due to excess fees and a maximum value of £1,800 on her policy for contents.

Miss Deuxberry said it was only by ‘sheer luck and good fortune’ that no one else was injured or killed and nothing else was damaged apart from the car.

Gemma McKernan, in mitigation, told the court Skipper had no previous convictions and worked ‘incredibly hard and long hours’ with racing horses.

A pre-sentence report said they could not make any community recommendations as Skipper either did not meet the criteria or was unsuitable due to her ‘onerous work commitments’.

Racehorse owner Richard Clothier MBE provided a character reference for her but this was not read out in court.

Miss McKernan said: ‘She has taken responsibility from the get go that she was in the car.

‘She could not see herself ever driving whilst drunk therefore assumed she must have been in the passenger seat. She just couldn’t believe she would do such a thing.

‘But when the prosecution evidence was fully served she came to the realisation she simply must have. She was horrified that she had put people at risk that way.’

Answering why she took Miss Snell’s car instead of her own, Miss McKernan added: ‘She simply does not know.

‘There is some suggestion she may have got the wrong car – they both drive Vauxhalls, small and dark in colour.’

Recorder Nicholas Haggan said the offences were so serious the only sentence was imprisonment but that he would suspend it as she had a realistic prospect of rehabilitation.

The defendant was given a 12-week jail term, suspended for two years and banned from driving for two years.

Skipper worked for the late racehorse trainer and former jockey Bill Turner and now is employed by his daughter Kathy Turner in Somerset.

She was an amateur jockey when she was younger and grew up hunting with the Blackmore & Sparkford Vale Hunt.

She bought the racehorse Corporal Jackjones last year and trains it at Charlton Horethorne.

Skipper got her first win with the horse at the Blackmore and Sparkford Vale point to point last year in the restricted race.

Her first win as a professional trainer ‘under rules’ happened earlier this month when jockey Darren Andrews rode Corporal Jackjones to victory by more than five lengths at Stratford Racecourse.

Much of her family are involved with horses. Her uncle Tim Sprake was a talented flat jockey until a car accident stopped his career and cousin Charlie Sprake is a jockey and trainer.

Richard Clothier MBE, managing director of Wyke Farms, owns Red Snapper, who is trained by Kathy Turner.