Full feather lovers, ahoy! Gypsy cob Jasper Carrott won his first British Eventing run in a BE80 section at West Wilts earlier this month (7-8 June) with Sarah Edmunds, following up on Sarah’s six top-three placings across this and last season with her other gypsy cob I Should Coco.
“We can either terrify the fancy blood horses with our flying feather – people say to keep them away in the warm-up – or people want to hug my cobs,” said Sarah. “The steward at West Wilts said he wanted to squeeze ‘Perry’ like a tube of toothpaste!”
Sarah added: “I always put on our commentator info that we’re like a living breathing Thelwell cartoon – we have Penelope and Kipper status.
“It just proves you don’t have to have millions of pounds, a 17hh warmblood, an expensive lorry and a big team of people – you can go and do these things and have so much fun.”
While H&H recommends people should be cautious when buying horses unseen, Sarah did buy both cobs in this way – I Should Coco after scrolling Facebook when she was bored after hunting was snowed off and Perry when his former owner needed to find him a home quickly due to having to leave a yard. Sarah fetched him from a London industrial estate.
Gypsy cob eventing: “We’re not selling this!”
Sarah said: “I was looking for a show cob when I bought Coco but the judges were saying he was a gypsy cob instead, so I got into the feather. I took him to a lesson with my instructor Jane Adderley and said I might sell him and 20 minutes in she said, ‘We’re not selling this’. She won everything in dressage on him when I had to have shoulder surgery – he must have thought rosettes only come in red!”
Coco currently leads the BE80 British Eventing opposition beaten percentage leagues and has also been successful in riding club championships and the Cotswold Cup.
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“I thought I was a bit of a coward over flagged jumps although I drag hunt with the Staff College and Berks and Bucks, so I had to get my brave pants on,” said Sarah.
Perry did not feel 100% in himself in the build-up to West Wilts and Sarah had done checks such as having the dentist and chiropractor out, then decided it could be down to the fact she had sold the Albion K2 he had previously shared with another horse. She bought a bargain older saddle of the same model off eBay and “that fixed everything”.
She also switched him from a Kimblewick for jumping to a straight bar three-ring gag following a lesson with Carl Belson.
“It got him off his forehand and really pinging,” she said. “If something isn’t working, you have to talk to your instructors and try different things.”
Sarah works three-and-a-half days a week as a parish clerk, which she says is a very flexible job that fits around horses.
“And if you can deal with the chaos and politics of a horse yard, residents and councils are easy,” she laughed.
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Pippa is a true eventing geek and has been H&H’s eventing editor since 2005. She has first-hand experience of competing up to British Eventing intermediate and international CCI2*-L level, and has worked in the industry on a top event yard. Pippa enjoys nothing more than immersing herself in the sport at the highest level, reporting from the five-stars and international championships, including the Olympics.
