From unrideable to unstoppable: the ‘dangerous’ £1 horse once facing euthanasia who has made all his owner’s dreams come true
The rider hope Thomas the Tank’s story will show starting late and not having thousands do not mean it’s impossible to achieve dreams
A rider who hopped her first hedge four years ago has completed her first open team chase – on a £1 horse who faced being put down owing to his “dangerous” behaviour.
Sophie Edwards and Thomas the Tank are part of The Pheasant Pluckers, who came fourth in the open section of the Belvoir team chase on 27 September. Since Sophie bought her ultimate bargain horse in 2024, they have also completed the Cottesmore scurry and Silver Spur hunt rides, and a charity point-to-point.
“He’s made all my dreams come true, really,” Sophie told H&H. “He’s incredible, he’s gone from unrideable to unstoppable.”
Sophie grew up in a non-horsey family but started cycling to and helping at her local riding school as a teenager. When she was 16, she used the money she earned to start having lessons, and soon found out she had a knack with challenging horses, as she would be the one called to get on when a client was having problems, to calm and settle the horse.
She then went to equestrian college and worked as a groom, “as that was my only way to be around horses”. She did manage to buy thoroughbred Louie, when she was 20, then a challenging horse called Peanut. Then, in early 2024, along came Thomas.
“I work at Rossdales Equine Vets, where Thomas was having a lot of assessments because of behavioural issues, and they couldn’t find any real issues,” Sophie said.
“His owner had spent a lot of time and money getting him looked into to see if his behaviour was down to pain, but nothing really came up.”
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Sophie said the vets found minor suspensory ligament filling, and although it was not thought this was the cause of his extreme behaviour, he was treated and rehabbed.
“The vets said she could ride him again and I think that’s when she realised she couldn’t see herself getting back on him,” she said. “He was throwing himself around, a bit of bucking, a bit of rearing, a bit of everything, really. But the main thing was definitely bolting.
“He was 15 and in rehab, and had been so dangerous and scary, and everyone told her they didn’t want her to get back on too. That’s when she decided the best thing might be to put him down as who would want to take a chance on him? I take my hat off to her, it takes a lot to admit a horse is too much for you, and there are worse things than being put down; being passed around, injuring someone or going to a worse fate.”
One of the vets mentioned Thomas to Sophie, knowing that Peanut had also been very challenging but become a very good horse for her.
“I’d just lost a horse, who’d had multiple surgeries but we couldn’t save him, so I wasn’t in a place to take on not only another horse but such a complex one,” she said. “But as soon as they said he’d be put down and I was his last chance, I said ‘I’ll take him’.”
The vets agreed that Thomas could be turned out for six months, so Sophie spoke in detail to his owner.
“I signed a contract about everything I was aware he does, which is basically everything under the sun!” she said. “On the ground and ridden – he was an absolute thug when he arrived – but I signed a contract saying I was fully aware and I’d be his last home; if it didn’t work out, he’d be able to retire with me and be in a field and never be ridden again.
“I paid a literal pound for him, and it was the best deal ever. It sounds even cheekier but I also got three saddles, two bridles, a full wardrobe of rugs, everything you could possibly list, I got with him for one pound.”
Thomas had his six months out, in a herd, “being a horse”, as Sophie slowly moved on from losing her other horse.
“When he turned up, my other half and his dad said ‘What the hell have you got here?’ because he was an absolute nightmare,” she said. “He was causing carnage, being a thug, and I thought ‘What have I done?’ He’s very bargy and sensitive; his name wasn’t Thomas, it was The Thug.”
Sophie did four months of groundwork before she got on board, and was still doubting the wisdom of her actions.
“He felt he didn’t really want to have a connection, wasn’t up for creating a partnership, it was all on his terms, and that is him,” she said. “He’s like a mare; you have to ask him politely, not tell him, and if he doesn’t want to do something, he won’t, it’s not up for discussion.”
When Sophie started riding him, it was not plain sailing; far from it.
“The walk and trot were quite good but he was very spooky,” she said. “I think his main aim was to try to scare me, and he realised that wasn’t going to happen. I think that’s where the mutual respect came from; he scared riders in the past but I’m just as nuts as he is. I wouldn’t really react, just let him do whatever he wanted to do a bit and wasn’t fazed, so he stopped doing it.
“Our first canter was an absolute explosion, and he did blind bolt with me; I realised I was experiencing him at his worst. But again, I think before people would then avoid that situation, whereas I turned round, went back to where we started and cracked on again.
“He was a bit taken aback. Every time he did something, we went back and did it again and he did it less and less.”
Sophie decided to hunt Thomas for the first time at the 2025 Boxing Day meet, at which she kept him on the outskirts of the crowds.
“He was dancing, throwing a few shapes, people were giggling and it was fine,” she said. “I felt safe – I’ve got one photo that isn’t blurred! – and I thought the worst was over.
...“and then my bit broke...”
“We left the meet and I relaxed. But that meet is where our hacking is, where he knew, and we got to our canter/gallop track and he was getting all revved and excited. I warned everyone I wasn’t sure I’d have any brakes, took him to the back and everyone set off at once, quite fast. He exploded, did a rodeo, let rip – and then my bit broke.
“I was on a runaway train, flying through everyone with no bit. I shouted to my friend, she came upside me and managed to grab my noseband and push him towards the hedge, and as soon as we stopped, I jumped off.”
A few repairs, and Thomas and Sophie were good to go for the rest of the day.
“I don’t scare that easily but I did have a bit of fear then as Thomas is the strongest horse I’ve ever ridden,” she said. “I was nervous about that part anyway, then for my bit to break – of all the horses and situations for that to happen, it was all the worst-case scenarios at once.
“Now I’m actually sponsored by a bridle company, and I definitely say to everyone to check their bridles before they go!”
Thomas – who also acts as huntsman’s horse for Sophie’s fiancé Harvey Roberts with the Cambridgeshire Hunt with Enfield Chace – and Sophie also started team chasing. They went straight in at intermediate level as “he jumps sillier, the smaller they are”, so she wanted to back him off a bit. But he still takes all the fences at his own speed.
“He’s turned into a bit of a team-chasing celebrity,” she said. “I hate to say it as his ego’s big enough already! But everyone notices him as he jumps four times bigger than he needs to.
“Sometimes it’s the most amazing feeling ever, and very addictive, other times it’s absolutely terrifying because we’re jumping ginormous obstacles and he adds a metre on top of that, at top speed. It should be impossible for him to get the height he does, going that fast.”
A thoroughbred warmblood
Sophie said Thomas, as a warmblood, is not as fast as his thoroughbred teammates, but what he loses in time on the gallops, he makes up with some fabulous showjumping-style turns so he always keeps up. And his technique served them as well on the open track as it always had.
“It was very much surviving, not thriving, but it actually went really well,” she said. “The biggest hedges felt ridiculously easy, he makes them feel nothing, and he handles it so well, it’s effortless. But it is top speed; sometimes I would like him to at least have a communication with me, but there’s no conversation at all. It’s his way or no way.
“I just have to sit there, shut up, and get on with it. I’m better off leaving him alone and that’s why we get on because I just accept my fate a bit and trust in him, and he has a lot of respect that I’m able to do that. We are as nuts as each other.”
Sophie said she hopes her and Thomas’s story shows that you do not necessarily have to have a horsey background or be born in the saddle, or pay thousands for a perfect horse.
“I spent a lot of [Monday] crying,” she said. “It had been a very emotional finish; I was crying and thanking Thomas; I couldn’t believe he’d taken me round my first open, and so effortlessly.
“I belong here”
“But then it hit me; I’ve come from nowhere. I didn’t grow up riding, or at Pony Club, I was an outsider looking in. I used to think I was someone who could never do this, now I’m part of it. I’d never felt I belonged anywhere but team chasing is a big family and I belong here.”
Sophie said she was also approached by two riders who follow her Diary of a Hedge Hopper social media accounts, who told her she had encouraged them to do their first team chase.
“They were me a few years ago,” she said. “It was a full-circle moment. I started my social media to show where you can come from and that you can get there, to show the younger mes who were on the outside looking in about team chasing, so for that to have worked, these girls had done it and had a successful run – they hugged me and it was just amazing.”
Sophie added that she does not feel as brave as she looks but she is more scared of getting to the end of her life and regretting the things she did not do.
“Everything good in my life came from me having to fight my fears,” she said. “Going out hunting, I didn’t know anyone – now all my best friends are because I went out, put myself out, went hunting on my own. Team chasing, I turned up knowing no one, got put in a team. It was so scary turning up doing something I’d never done before, knowing no one, didn’t even know if my horse would do it or not. It is very scary. But from that day on, my whole life has changed, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”
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Eleanor is an experienced journalist who spent over eight years working for local and national newspapers before joining H&H as news editor in March 2016. Passionate about equine welfare and exposing the truth, Eleanor has reported on all aspects of the industry, from Brexit to anti-bullying campaigns, and from dressage rules to mules. Her sport of choice is showjumping, in which she competes her own horses, and she also enjoys reporting at local jumping shows through to international championships.