After Great Britain’s showjumping team delighted fans with their brilliant victory in the Nations Cup of Sharjah, UAE, last weekend, we caught up with one of the winning quartet, Donald Whitaker, who jumped a superb double clear with the stunning mare Millfield Colette.
He describes the team’s achievement as “a day I will never forget”, not least because he was jumping alongside his brother Joe Whitaker for just the second time, as well as team-mates Tim Gredley and William Funnell.
Millfield Colette, known at home as “Ellie”, is a 10-year-old mare by Cornet Obolensky and a new ride for 30-year-old Donald. She was bred by Sue Jaggar at Millfield Stud out of a Clearway mare and was produced by Laura Robinson, with whom she had been jumping CSI3* grands prix, before Donald took the reins at the start of November.
“She’s getting better and better every single time she jumps,” Donald told H&H. “I’d always had a bit of an eye on her jumping with Laura, but it’s actually my girlfriend Nicola Pohl who owns her and she mentioned her again, so we took a bit more notice of her, then in the space of a week we had bought her.
“The first day I rode her, I realised she has a lot of blood, she’s very scopey and she’s clever as well,” he adds. “She’s a bit wild – she’s a blood mare – but when she goes in the ring she puts all that into her jump, she’s an unbelievable fighter. She feels like the bigger the fences, the harder she wants to run at them. She’s amazing to ride, very exciting, and she feels like there’s nothing too big for her.”
Donald Whitaker: ‘She’s making her presence felt’
The pair were placed in a handful of shows in Europe before travelling to the UAE at the start of the year, where they were part of the five-star Nations Cup team that finished second in Abu Dhabi, before going one better in Sharjah.
“She just had one fence down in the five-star, then came back and jumped an amazing clear round,” says Donald. “On the back of that, to then jump double clear in Sharjah shows she’s improving every time she goes in the ring, so she’s very exciting.
“She’s the one that’s coming through, bright lights shining. She’s definitely made her presence felt in the stable that’s for sure!”
Donald describes winning a Nations Cup team competition alongside his brother as “very special”.
“Joe was beating himself up a bit after the last one [when he just missed out in a jump-off against Austria] so I said, ‘We’ll just have to win the next one’ – and we did!” says Germany-based Donald, who made his UAE debut last year. “The course was technical enough – it probably wasn’t the biggest track under the circumstances, but Nations Cups are more about the occasion, people on the team are relying on you and there’s a bit of extra pressure. But it was difficult enough, with only two double clears and Ireland had a strong team, too.
“There was such good team spirit – with my brother there, Tim Gredley, Will Funnell; we’re all very good friends so actually the atmosphere has been very good for the past couple of weeks.”
Donald Whitaker reveals that he “tries to do my own thing” during Nations Cup competitions, but had “half an eye on Ireland”, Great Britain’s nearest challengers coming through to round two.
“So going into the ring, I wasn’t 100 percent sure, but I knew if Shane Breen, who went before me, had one down and I went clear, we’d more or less won it,” says Donald. “But I blocked that out as I trotted into the ring and she just popped round it. Riding a horse like her makes life a lot easier!
“To jump on a Nations Cup team is a really big opportunity and to do as well as we’ve done at the start of the year gives you massive confidence – it’s good for the horses, good for British showjumping and it gives everyone around you confidence as well.
“It’s a dream come true, just amazing.”
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