Competition cob

“HE GIVES ME GOOSEBUMPS”

BRISTOL BLUE – known as Harvey (above) – is a cob who loves the limelight.

“He doesn’t put his ears forward now unless there are lights, music and lots of cameras”, explains Kathleen Botting.

But given everything Harvey has achieved, perhaps that’s fair enough. Harvey fell into Kathleen’s lap 15 years ago, when he was a six-year-old.

“I was looking for a show horse that had to be coloured so that I could go and do two classes. Something good enough to do county level,” she says.

After almost being bucked off in his trial, Kathleen decided to take him home. At his first local riding club show, he won the novice ridden, the open cob and the coloured, before going supreme champion. The pair qualified for the Royal International their first time out – “we won our Search For A Star qualifier, and he just kept winning”.

Not everyone is a fan of a cob, however. “I came out to do my conformation bit at one final, and the commentator said: ‘Here we have the first of our coloured horses,’” says Kathleen. “The judge’s response was: ‘Yes, they are very common, aren’t they?’ I thought, ‘OK, we won’t win this one.’ And we didn’t, we came third.”

The following year, Harvey won supreme riding club horse at Equifest and jumped clear at the Royal International.

“He went on to jump four consecutive clear rounds in the workers at Royal International and was placed every year,” explains Kathleen.

But in 2012, they decided to have a break from showing: “He had won everything that I felt I could win – so I decided to event him.

“We stripped a whole load of weight off him, which he was really unimpressed by,” says Kathleen.

They headed to Tweseldown BE90, where Kathleen was “gutted at being 11th”. At Munstead they jumped the 100 fence into the water by accident, but later that season placed runner-up at Tweseldown. He was placed every time out and their best dressage score (unaffiliated) was a sub-20; “something you dream about”.

Sadly he damaged a tendon towards the end of the season, so the duo took up dressage, competing up to medium level. In 2013 they were one of four combinations invited to be in the grand finale at the London International Horse Show, doing two side-saddle performances a day.

“Being able to ride in that main hall at Olympia was just fantastic; it’s giving me goosebumps just thinking about it!”, she exclaims.

In 2015 she won the Side Saddle Association intermediate side-saddle of the year award with him. The same year he won the supreme performance side-saddle horse award – the only time the same horse and rider combination had won two major titles in the same year. Even better, Harvey won it with a record number of points.

After a break, they qualified for the Sunshine Tour at Hickstead in 2018, where he jumped clear before going overall super supreme of the show.

Harvey is now enjoying a more sedate life, though he can still pull out the moves.

“He will still pirouette, he will still do changes and half-pass if I ask him to. On top of it all, Harvey is just such a nice person, he absolutely adores kisses and cuddles.”

Cobs, says Kathleen, are “the most versatile horses. They love to work and they have a real attitude about them. They just have something about them that you don’t find in anything else.”