British team horse sold to Saudi Arabia: ‘We just couldn’t afford to keep her’

British showjumper Ellen Whitaker’s top horse Equine America Spacecake has been sold to Saudi Arabia after connections received an offer that meant “we couldn’t afford to keep her”, Ellen told H&H.

Since teaming up in 2021, Ellen and the mare, owned by Tilly and Andrew Shaw, competed at the highest level, including representing Great Britain at the Nations Cup Final in Barcelona last year and finishing fourth and best of the Brits in the Longines Global Champions Tour grand prix of London. They were also shortlisted for the 2022 World Showjumping Championships in Herning, Denmark.

But the 10-year-old grey had started attracting plenty of attention from potential buyers and, said Ellen, “the offers were getting bigger and bigger until it just became impossible to turn down”.

Equine America Spacecake has been sold to the Saudi Equestrian Federation for one of the country’s leading riders, Khaled Almobty.

“They were looking for a very good horse so I hope she’ll go on and do well,” said Ellen. “It’s a huge shame, the whole team were in bits, it was very sad.

“It’s always difficult to let horses go – good horses even worse – so when you find one as special as she was… she was unique. She was probably the best horse I’ve ever had, in that we were very well suited and we grew so much together in a short period of time during last year.”

“So it is a pity not to reap the rewards of that this year, but at the same time I’m extremely proud of how she stepped up to the top sport and proved herself in the way she did,” said Ellen, who took the reins on the Stakkatol daughter from Belgium rider Jeroen Appelen.

“The London GCT was nice, I’m so happy with that, then Barcelona was the last Nations Cup she did and she probably jumped that one the best, so she was still improving. I’m super proud of her.”

Ellen Whitaker: ‘Time was running out’

“I started to try to look for options to keep her, I was looking for somebody to perhaps buy her for me to keep, but time was running out,” said Ellen Whitaker, a European team bronze medallist and part of the famous showjumping dynasty.

“The price of horses has just gone through the roof in the past few years and I don’t know if it’s because of the Olympics coming up, but people are desperate for horses at the moment. I got a hundred phone calls for that horse. So I knew [the sale] was coming because the offers were getting to the point where we couldn’t afford to keep her.

“When I work with my owners, I try to be as fair and as reasonable as possible. So when my owner asks me if that was a good price to sell the horse at, I can’t say no because it is! We all have to make a living out of what we’re doing as well. I’m a single mother of two children, I have to provide for them, so business is hugely important to me and this is all I do – this is my sport, my business, my career. So it was a good business deal for me too, but it’s still devastating to have to lose Equine America Spacecake.”

Ellen still has the talented 10-year-old Equine America Ivanhoe GPH and the exciting nine-year-old J Superstar in her string as well as some younger horses, but is keen for “more support, more owners” to help maintain her position as a frequent Great Britain team rider and one of the country’s most successful riders.

“It’s getting more difficult than ever to keep our top horses and I’m desperately looking for as much support as I can get,” she said.

“I’ve worked with fantastic owners over many years. Tilly Shaw and her father Andrew have been massive supporters and we’ve had a great time so far. But the reality now is that to take on the best riders at the top of the sport, you need as many good horses as you can get your hands on and a very strong team to be able to do that, and the price nowadays means you need a whole team of owners or at least ones willing to spend a lot of money. I’m always looking for the next top horse!”

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