All in a day’s work Rocking horse maker Marc Stevenson
Marc Stevenson on bringing a block of wood to life, 8,000-year-old bog oak and shutting Valegro’s mouth
I grew up in Kenya with my twin brother,
Tony (pictured below, left), riding horses on the beach. Our uncle made rocking horses, but we never got one. Later on, he gave Tony an apprenticeship and I went to art school to learn about design. Our sister lent us a stable to work from on her farm in Kent; we drew up the templates, then got going. We went back to how the Victorians used to make them — you don’t need to reinvent the rocking horse.
We start by choosing the timber, usually oak.
The grain comes through and reflects the horse’s muscle pattern. We try to visit the real horse but, if we can’t, it’s fine to work from photographs. It’s all in the eyes — if you get those right, the head and body flow from there.
Contrary to most people’s opinion,
rocking horses are not solid. We build a hollow box for the body, into which we put a safe for childhood keepsakes, accessed by a door under the stomach, then mortice and tenon the legs in place. We attach the head and carve the wood for a week or two — in every block of wood, there’s a horse waiting to be revealed. We make them as lifelike as possible. If it’s a heavy cob, we feather the legs. For an Arab, we carve the features in their dished faces.
Victorian rocking horses always had open mouths.
But when we were commissioned by Dean Golding to replicate Valegro for his fiancée Charlotte Dujardin, we had to change that. You can’t have the world’s most famous dressage horse with an open mouth! Equipe, one of Charlotte’s sponsors, made the tack in Italy, and we gold-plated Valegro’s shoes from Rio 2016 and London 2012, then mounted them on the base. We carved the world record scores on the inside of the base and used some of Valegro’s hair in the tail. Valegro’s groom, Alan Davies, plaited up the mane and Dean presented it to Charlotte the night she retired Valegro at Olympia.
Our horses are commissioned, often after a client’s favourite horse.
It takes eight to 12 weeks to make one and our horses vary in price from around £1,000 to £10,000, based on size and material. We also do limited editions and one-offs, such as a zebra in Swarovski crystals, a camel, and a horse on springs made from 8,000-year-old bog oak from the Norfolk Broads.
The horses are expensive because of the time it takes our team of 12 in Kent to handmake them.
Each horse is the only one of its kind and is individually numbered. Since the first horse we finished on 20 October 1982, we have made 9,000 horses. That number includes the five we have made for Her Majesty the Queen. One of these was Burmese, the horse she trooped the colour on for 19 years. Meeting The Queen to present the horses was a highlight of my career.
Children love rocking horses because they have to use their imagination.
It’s all about learning to ride in your pyjamas in the front room. Our horses are also very popular among grownup girls who didn’t get a pony when they were younger. This is about real craftsmanship that will last forever and I feel incredibly privileged to be making them.
‘In every block of wood, there’s a horse waiting to be revealed’