Nothing to see here, folks… just a horse jumping a Range Rover.
Letty Fenlon and her own Grimm made nothing of clearing Kyran Taylor’s 40-year-old vehicle, and the moments were captured for posterity, by Rob Buck of Buck Photography and Kyran on video.
Letty told H&H it was her idea.
“I’d seen a photo of someone jumping a classic Porsche, in a desert with a horse and rider in Western gear,” she said. “Kyran has his @workinglandrovers social media pages and I thought it would make a good photo for that. So I rang him out of the blue and said ‘How big’s the bonnet on your Range Rover?’”
Letty, who showjumps and has evented, said Dutch-bred 14-year-old Grimm is by far her best and most reliable careful jumper; he has jumped 1.40m classes and completed hunt rides including the Melton, so “he’s jumped some serious fences”.
The video, on YouTube, shows how they prepared Grimm, starting with a cross-pole next to the car, working up to the bonnet’s 1.20m height and moving sideways to clear it.
“We went a few times, and I had a placing pole so I knew if I was wrong to the pole, I was going to be wrong to the car so I could circle, which is a little bit cheating!” Letty said.
“And he’s a very smart horse, who will stop if he thinks it’s unsafe. I was cross-country schooling him yesterday, and I have blood sugar issues. My bloods dropped and my balance went, and he pulled himself up and said ‘No, thank you. Not jumping’. And the second I’d eaten a bag of Haribos, I was fine again, and he carried on jumping, no problem. He’s very smart in knowing when not to go.”
“I think the pictures actually look more impressive than it felt,” she added. “Kyran and Rob did an amazing job getting all the footage, and Kieran has put together the video of how we did it. He loved the whole thing, and it looks awesome.
“Grimm’s a phenomenal horse to ride; I’m very lucky, and I’m going to have the pictures blown up massive on my wall.”
Kyran was also pleased, not only with the pictures and footage but that no horses, people – or classic Range Rovers – were at all scathed.
And asked what might be the next challenge Juliet – who as H&H reported once donated part of her liver to save a baby girl she had never met – said she is open to most ideas.
“I also said that we should try and ask either Bramham, which is our local event, or Burghley, to let me jump Defenders in front of the main house, because that would be dramatic!” she said.
