The owner of a horse who was hand-reared from birth and survived breaking his withers in a freak accident to jump at the top national level has paid tribute to her horse of a lifetime after his death aged 22.
Kirsty Hardstaff told H&H that the story of her home-bred superstar Quid, who jumped in the Foxhunter final, the international classes at Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) and countless international stairway and area trial classes, shows that dreams can come true.
“It was very hard work; a tough journey,” Kirsty said. “But I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
Kirsty rode Quid’s mother, Bellevue Haypence, who was put in foal to It’s The Business.
“I was always going to call whatever foal she had Money Business,” she said. “But we lost his mum foaling him. I tried to get a foster mum, I tried to do everything, and it was a nightmare. Then I bought the milk powder, realised how expensive it was, and my brother, said to me: ‘That’s going to cost you a few quid’. And the name stuck!”
Kirsty said she came home from the vets’ heartbroken by the loss of Quid’s dam, and with a tiny foal to care for.
“They said I had to get up every hour and a half to feed him – my drive was really long so by the time I’d fed him and got back, it was time to do it again!” she said. “Everyone said I needed to get a surrogate mare and I tried but it just didn’t work. I ended up with this guy offering me a pony foal he’d been bottle-feeding – he said ‘You may as well have two’! I said ‘Great’, but I bottle-fed this pony, Tiny, and they lived together until they were three.”
Kirsty did everything by the book, getting Quid on to a bucket as soon as possible.
“But there were things like once I turned him out and climbed back through the post-and-rail fence instead of going through the gate and he tried to do the same,” she said. “You don’t realise everything the mare teaches them. It took me seven months to back him, he was horrendous!”
Quid had his quirks throughout his life, Kirsty said; he seemed always to be terrified of hitting his head on anything above it so had to be long-reined into strange stables.
“He was so tricky, because of the hand-rearing,” she said. “People said ‘They usually never make it’, and he probably had really terrible conformation, and a shiver behind, but he jumped until he was 20.”
Kirsty and Quid contested the Queen’s Cup at Hickstead twice, jumping clear and coming fifth with just a couple of time-faults on their first attempt, which Kirsty said was “the best thing ever”.
“I had my twins in February 2013, and qualified for the Foxhunter final that October, so that on its own was a bit crazy,” she said. “He was such a big part of my life.
“And for the kids out there, it’s a very, very high-end sport now. I know you’ve got to get lucky, but a lot of money is involved. And I think there’s a lot of kids who maybe haven’t got loads of money that get very disillusioned. I try to be that person who says it is possible.
“Quid didn’t have the best start but in another person’s hands, he probably could have been winning the puissance every year, and done the Hickstead Derby. It was different for me as I had my family and running businesses and everything but he was a super, super horse. I couldn’t have bought one like him.”
Mennell Watson rode Quid too, including to placings in the HOYS international classes, and Kirsty said other riders would say they wanted to take him home.
“But Mennell would say ‘You’d bring him back’,” Kirsty said. “He wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea but we had a partnership.”
Kirsty was also approached about the possibility of jumping for Britain on Nations Cup teams but could not take the time away from home. But she and Quid continued to enjoy success on the county circuit – despite the freak accident.
“He was in a 7.5t lorry and the horse next to him freaked out,” she said. “And somehow he got under the petition, facing the ramp, and trying to stand up. It was horrendous.”
With help, Kirsty freed Quid and took him straight to Oakham vets, where they X-rayed him and found he had broken his withers.
“I asked how bad it was and the vet said ‘He’ll come back, he just needs six months’,” she said. “I gave him a year; I had to pad all his rugs and he had his buckets lifted up and a thick bed, and he was happy. I’ve got pictures of my little girl outside his stable, reading him a story, and he healed.
“A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into him; he was really tricky but just a great horse.”
Kirsty added that she has had other great horses but “I’ve never had one like him”.
“I think I could have ridden him to any jump; no jump ever felt too big,” she said. “He was tricky, but he would have given you everything.
“It’s a real family thing; my brother’s a farrier and shod him all his life, my parents, my groom Sarah has been a huge part of it. It was very tough to make the decision; you have to do the right thing by them but it’s very hard.
“It’s just nice to let people know that you can be lucky. You’ve got to keep dreaming, and that’s what keeps me going.”
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