A horse who went with his young rider from Pony Club to the very top of eventing, winning medals for his country and completing multiple five-star events, has died aged 29 after an idyllic and beloved retirement.
Pardon Me II, who won six medals for Britain, and the under-25 national title, and completed Badminton, Burghley and Lühmuhlen with Emily Routledge (neé Llewellyn), stayed with the Llewellyns until the end, enjoying his extra-large cup of tea – with one sugar – every day.
“We bought P when he was five years old and have been fortunate enough to have him in our lives for 24 years,” Emily’s mother Cindy Llewellyn told H&H.
Emily told H&H she can still remember when she first saw P, at a yard in Holland.
“He was so inquisitive and so cute,” she said. “They were showing me a load of other horses, but I kept circling back to him. So we tried him and liked him.
“He was just the most amazing little horse. I think it was really his character that made him so special. He was so on my team, and he did everything he could for me, always.”
Emily said that in some ways, she had the “blissful ignorance” of youth, and saw no reason why Pardon Me II should not go to the top. And he did.
Together they won the Pony Club championships in their first season, then the next year, 2007, won team gold and individual bronze at the junior Europeans. In 2008 they won team and individual young rider European gold and in 2009 team gold and individual bronze, the year they also won the four-star Bramham under-25 title.
“I think it was just thinking, ‘Why not?’” Emily said. “‘Why can’t he be that?’ And then he always just gave everything. Luckily, he had enough quality and scope, and we just got there together. He taught me so much in my riding.
“And I think I was just in the moment. You just ride the wave all the way and with him, the wave kept going until the very end. I was so lucky with him; it never crashed, it kept going. And he got better and better, and he stayed sound his whole career; that’s mostly thanks to my mum because her management of the horses was amazing, and I was very lucky to have her guiding me the whole way through everything.
“And again, in his retirement, my mum has looked after him like a king.”
Emily said many people were surprised by P’s small stature as he had such a big stride. She paid tribute to the character that took him to the top, citing her particular highlight as the European gold.
“And completing Badminton and Burghley. I felt immensely proud and lucky to have him,” she said. “It’s hard to find words to describe him but he was completely selfless and so generous.”
Emily and Pardon Me II were also on the World Class Programme, competed on Nations Cup teams and were longlisted for the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, and the guinea pigs for the dressage phase in London. He retired in 2013, after which Mrs Llewellyn said he had a “wonderful long, happy and very pampered retirement”.
“He was much loved by everyone,” she said.
P last summer, aged 28
“We’d have liked perhaps to give him to a youngster to take on but he was cheeky; he’d drop you! Always with a big sense of humour, not malicious at all, so I just gave him a very, very long retirement here, and he had his cup of tea every day. He had a very long tongue, and he used to put his tongue in your ear, then if you had a cup of tea, he’d go straight to that. So we ended up giving him his own gigantic mug every day.
“He’d been sound all the way through, and never colicked, but on Monday night it was his guts. He didn’t suffer. He was so lucky all his life.”
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