Ian on 3 of the best

SIR WATTIE (above left)

Winner of Bramham 1983, Badminton 1986 and 1988, team gold and individual silver at the 1987 European Championships, team and individual silver at the 1988 Olympic Games.

“Wattie taught me everything in the beginning. In my opinion he was a star from the first time I rode him as a four-year-old when he nearly bucked me off. I thought then: ‘Well, he’s very special.’ At my first Badminton I made huge mistakes and he saved my neck. I remember galloping at a broken bridge thinking: ‘I’ve completely screwed up here.’ He landed on the rising ground, went right down on his nose, and ploughed along the ground for two or three strides before picking himself up to keep going.”

GLENBURNIE (above right)

Fourth at Burghley in 1986, team gold at the 1989 European Championships, team and individual gold at the 1991 European Championships.

“Glenburnie was kind of nuts – a pretty hot-headed, bold, thoroughbred. He was bred beat his fear of heights.

“I remember someone saying a million years ago: ‘It’s all very well for him to ride so fast, but is he ever in control?’ And I was kind of annoyed by it because even with Murphy Himself and Glenburnie, who were very strong, I never felt out of control,” he says. “I couldn’t ride without being able to see my to be a Cheltenham horse and was hunted by Rosi Maitland-Carew before he came to me for a couple of months to school and hunt. I was jumping five-bar metal gates on him as a fouryear-old – not what you should do – but he was just brilliant. The Maitland-Carews were persuaded to leave him with me to event, and within nine months he was the Scottish novice champion.”

MURPHY HIMSELF

Won Burghley in 1986 with Ginny Elliot before going to Ian and winning team and individual silver at the 1990 World Equestrian Games.

“Murphy was ridiculously brave. At Belton Park the spring after I got him, he fell at a combination, and that was the only time we parted company. I remember thinking it was my fault because I tried to slow him down in the middle. I then realised that my job was to present him at the fence and it was his job to decide what he wanted to do. I just had to be a bit of a passenger and go with it.” stride and influence the horse at every fence. I possibly over-ride, or over-control, but I think I just have a pretty competitive, positive nature.”

IT is perhaps this competitive spirit and attention to detail – “I’m incredibly pernickety” – so artfully combined with the eagerness to have a good

“My job was to present him at the fence and it was his job to decide what he wanted to do”

IAN ON MURPHY HIMSELF