‘Next year will be his year’: meet showjumping’s rising star, with Queen’s Cup the goal
Over this festive season, we are shining a light on up-and-coming talent across the equestrian disciplines. These are people you really need to keep an eye out for during 2024...
2024 looks set to be an exciting year for 25-year-old showjumper Alex Somerville-Cotton. She was recently selected for the British Showjumping, in conjunction with Sport England, 2023/2024 gold development programme and, with a really promising string of horses that she’s been producing herself, the future is looking bright for this ambitious and talented young rider.
Alex comes from a non-horsey family but she and her mother have been breeding some super youngsters in recent years and her current top horse, the 11-year-old Conan Doyle, aka Henry, has recently returned from colic surgeries and has stepped up impressively to rankings classes.
Alex caught the showjumping bug at school and decided while completing her A-levels that she would work full-time with horses instead of going to university – and she hasn’t looked back since.
She was previously selected for British Showjumping’s Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE) and is now embarking on the gold programme for riders aiming to establish themselves at the 1.40-1.50m level, and those that are bidding for the world class performance pathway programme. She is excited at the opportunities it presents to her, including camps with lead coaches Matt Lanni and Nicola McLeish and sessions with saddlers, farriers, equine physiotherapists and coaching in rider strength and conditioning.
“It’s amazing. I’ve known Matt for ages and he’s brilliant,” says Alex. “They’ve really tried so hard to help the people coming through the sport to have the best head-start.”
Alex says she wouldn’t be where she is today without a horse called Summer – “the best thing that ever happened to me” – who was bought by her late father from Matt Lanni, and is now a very successful broodmare.
“I’ve bred too many horses now!” says Alex. “I have about 12 in work, all the young ones I do myself and the oldest one that I started is eight, my grey Kevin [Amazing-K Van’t Kattenheye Z]. I started him as a three-year-old and he’s now jumping rankings which is really exciting. He’s a complete lunatic, but he loves to jump so it’s really rewarding.”
“I think next year will be his year,” she says, planning to head to Sentower and Riesenbeck at the start of February. “I know everyone wants to jump on a team and that would be amazing, but to just keep establishing myself at ranking level and being competitive and seeing how we get on, that would be fantastic.”
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