Meet The Whiffler, an exhilarating but occasionally ‘terrifying’ ride – and ‘a very very nice person’ to boot

Smile is infectious and The Whiffler always has a grin on his face.

“He has such joy in life,” says Antonia Camilleri, former treasurer of the HH. “He was absolutely the most exhilarating person I’ve ever been on. So much fun.”

Antonia knew him first as Pidge, a hireling with the Chiddingfold, Leconfield and Cowdray, where she was trail-hunting at the time.

“The kids were getting older and I needed a horse, so I bought him. He was 500 quid and his saddle was £1,000. Best investment ever.”

Now in his late 20s, he was the first horse Antonia had that was properly her own, after a job and children. A “massive”, nearly 17hh thoroughbred by Saddlers’ Hall, he is “a complete powerhouse of a horse. He’s got General Ironside on his other side.”

A slight pigeon toe probably denied him a racing career and he ended up in Sussex with the Anstruthers in 2010 and a new name, Horncroft Beauty.

“I couldn’t call him Beauty, or Horny. He’s The Whiffler or Pidge,” said Antonia.

“Like sitting on an unexploded bomb”

The switch from knowing him as a hireling to having him at home was tricky at first.

“He was not easy,” she admits. “It was like sitting on a gelignite, an unexploded bomb. He’d go shooting across the field towards a jump sideways, like a crab. The first couple of years were terrifying.”

The Whiffler’s character won through: “He made me laugh! Now, I wouldn’t find it fun at all, but this was 20 years ago. I’d drop the kids at school and rush off.”

The horse had just as much fun: “If he heard doubling the horn, he’d freeze and blow up like a puffer fish. Then when he heard ‘gone away’, I just had to hold on!”

Athletic, like “quicksilver”, he was properly speedy: “I’ve never ridden a horse so fast in my entire life. His acceleration was incredible. He was so fast that my cheeks would sort of flap and I’d think, ‘Oh Christ, I’m going to die’.”

Remarkably, although “not a horse to queue”, he could be well mannered.

“He never went past the field master, he’d just get to the front. I hunted him in a snaffle.”

The best advice Antonia had was from dressage judge Tiffany Tasney, who said, “On a horse like that, if you can’t see your toes, you’re not doing it right.”

“A very nice person”

Pidge could fly-buck and was terrible to hack – “He’d wind himself up, hear a rustle in the bushes and be off. The emergency brake and whip-round was a specialty” – but on the ground he was a completely different horse.

“The kids could bring him in from the field. One classic day, my boys and Pidge were milling about in the yard and my youngest son came and said, ‘I’ve found a new place to store my cars, in Pidge’s tummy...’

Pidge was standing there, stock still, slightly braced. I had to explain to him that it was not a storage place... it’s called a sheath. We took out 11 cars!

Off the hunting field, The Whiffler’s zest for life took him to the beach, on sponsored rides and even, when a pony was lame, to Pony Club camp, “carting my son Charlie round and loving it.”

Antonia did a one-day event with him, “terrible dressage, clear showjumping, then I got overexcited coming up to the start gates and gave him a really big boot. He shot off like a scalded cat”. She wasn’t tempted to relive that particular adrenaline rush, but wishes team chasing had existed then as it does now.

Hounds were a great love, with puppies in the yard: “They’d spend hours rootling around. He liked to smell them, play with them. He likes small things, the cats, the children. Not a mean bone in his body.” He always “wanted to chat, a bit of a whiffle. He’s a very, very nice person”.

Now retired, he’s still interested in everything: “If something’s going on, he jumps the gate, or the electric fence or the wire. He potters with the hens and smells the flowers. He loves it all.” In the field, he’s the boss: “It’s great for fitness, he budges the other horses around.”

“I still can’t get over the fact that I’ve owned a quality horse like him.”

The Whiffler is not going anywhere and he’ll never stop loving life.

• For more exclusive insights into dedicated riders and their horses, subscribe to the Horse & Hound website