‘A reminder of the joy of our sport’: horse bought as £1,000 project from the field qualifies for Foxhunter final
The owner of a horse who spent years in the field, was sold for just over £1,000 as a rebacking project and has now qualified for the Foxhunter final said he has allowed her to re-find her joy in the sport.
Tatiane Mauree told H&H her goal for Jantuscha (Pingu) in the final at Horse of the Year Show (HOYS, 8-12 October) is just for him to have a good experience – and that she will be hugely proud of him, whatever happens.
“I can’t know how he’s going to react, but I know that whatever happens, he’s going to try his hardest,” she said. “I always know, coming out of the ring, that he’s left it all in there.”
Tatiane had great success in junior classes, including winning the 148cm titles at the British Showjumping National Championships and the Liverpool International Horse Show with Horseabout Zibu, and second at HOYS.
But Tatiane’s last year in ponies was 2021, and Zibu sustained a bone bruise that meant she could not jump, so Tatiane had to start on horses from scratch, with limited resources.
“I was at school looking at ads in my lessons,” she said. “I was having a bit of a crisis about the horses because I felt a bit uninspired, and had a financial barrier. I thought I’d get a project and improve them as much as I could, and sell them on, hopefully to make some money for a horse.”
Tatiane said she saw a picture of Pingu, just a head shot of him in a field.
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“I didn’t have an epiphany, ‘This is the horse who will do everything’ but I had this certainty that I was doing the right thing,” she said.
“They were asking £2,000; it said sold from the field, needs rebacking, no trials; many, many red flags. I showed my mum, and said ‘Why do you think he’s so cheap?’ and she said ‘Because of all these red flags! Why would you want to buy a horse like that?’ Which I do understand, but that was a green flag to message the seller!”
Tatiane said she would need to have the horse on trial, and the seller was not keen, but had had him for sale for so long, she agreed.
“I went back to my mum, and said ‘This horse that you said was a terrible idea, I think we could have him for a while’. She was very supportive and very kind, but obviously thought it was a terrible idea.”
Tatiane said the seller was very honest about Pingu’s issues; she had bought him at three but did not get on with him so she turned him out about a year later, and in the field he stayed till Tatiane bought him at eight.
“You couldn’t pick his feet up, or really touch his back legs in any way, you couldn’t get a bridle on him – or near him – even getting a headcollar on was complicated,” Tatiane said. “He would spin round when you were on him; kind of napping, but he just didn’t have any confidence.
“He wouldn’t go near a lorry to load; it’s funny to think back, because he can do all that now so easily. The first three days, there was definitely a moment of, ‘Oh my God. What have I done?’ But he actually learned really quickly. By the second or third week, I could pick up his front legs; it was about building a bond.”
Tatiane said her mother Arlina helped, and got the bridle on for the first time, and together they slowly rebacked him.
“After the first five days, we both thought ‘This is quite exciting’,” she said. “He’d learned so much, and he wanted to work with us; he started to trust us a bit. We thought ‘We might have something here’, but had no idea what he’d do. We put him over a cavaletti and he sort of fell over it but we had faith in him.”
Tatiane bought Pingu, for just over £1,000, thinking he might make a nice Pony Club horse
“He’s still quite complicated in a lot of ways, but because we have such a strong bond, I just have to think something, and he knows what I’m thinking,” she said. “And I feel like I can read his mind; it’s hard to describe, but we both have that instinct with each other. So we thought we’d see what happened.”
After about nine months of flatwork training at home, two years ago, Tatiane took Pingu to an unaffiliated show, to jump 80cm.
“It happened pretty quickly after that,” she said. “Every time we’ve asked for more and put it up a bit, he’s been absolutely game. A year after his first show, he was jumping 1.20, then a month or two later, he was jumping 1.40m.
“In that time, we went abroad. I was taking a horse I’d kind of inherited, and we took him too, a bit because we thought we couldn’t leave him at home. And there, he stepped up to 1.20m, then 1.40m, and I thought ‘This is actually quite easy for him’!”
Tatiane said she knows Pingu so well, she knows she can make the right decision for him; she has always gone into the ring thinking if in any way he feels unhappy, she will retire.
“Everything feels like a bonus with him,” she said. “Everything feels so wonderful because I can go anywhere and I’m so happy with anything that happens. It’s just amazing to think that he’s doing this. He goes to shows and it’s a joy every time.”
Tatiane said she never goes out with any expectations, and “he always surprises me”. Pingu was still in discovery (1m) points at the start of this year and she had thought of contesting the discovery second rounds but had a fence down, she thinks because it was by then smaller than he was happy with.
“I thought we’d do the newcomer second rounds but we’re unlikely to qualify, and we can do Foxhunters as practice for next year,” she said. “None of it was the intention of actually qualifying, it was very much an accident!”
Tatiane and Pingu jumped the Foxhunter second round at Weston Lawns in June, their last chance to qualify as Tatiane was leaving to go abroad for the summer a week later.
“I didn’t really have any expectations, just thought, go for fun and see what happens,” she said. “Then he made the second round, and we thought ‘How amazing, we’ll just go again’.”
In the third round, Tatiane said, she just went in to enjoy it, jumped clear, and then had a long wait.
“I thought I should probably stay, as he was clear, to see if there was a prizegiving, and he might place, but I didn’t think that he would qualify,” she said. “I went and walked him off, came back and Mum said ‘You’re still second’! But there was still James Ingham and Laura Renwick to go.
“We were watching the last one and it occurred to me that he possibly might qualify. But whoever it was, I had faith they would go clear and quick enough to beat me. It was a lovely round, a bit quicker, and I thought ‘How cool, to miss qualifying by one’ – and then they rolled the last fence.
“I didn’t know what to say. Lots of people came over to congratulate me, and some really lovely people said they were really rooting for us, it was lovely. I was in shock.”
Pingu had the summer off while Tatiane was away, and is now back in work and preparing for HOYS. And Tatiane said she hopes he will help show others that it does not necessarily take huge amounts of money to achieve dreams.
“I was having a really rough time, feeling the pressure of moving off ponies,” she said. “I was so fortunate with the lovely little mare I produced but all of a sudden, I didn’t have any evidence of a pathway forward. I wasn’t having wins, or jumping anything really impressive, and I felt ‘What if it’s not possible?
“It was a rough time and he found me at the perfect moment. It’s really given me so much faith in the love of the horses, because that’s all it has been for us. There was no goal for us to be doing what we are, I just thought ‘This is a really nice horse, and maybe I can help him find his forever home’. But I think he found it. Now I cannot imagine life without him. He’s really invigorated my love for the sport as well, and just doing it because we love it, and the horses love it.”
Highs and lows
Tatiane added that showjumping is a tough sport; the highs may be high but the lows can be very low, and the day-to-day of it can be very hard.
“But for me, he’s such a reminder that what we’re doing is just for the joy of it,” she said. “It’s the journey; our journey together. It’s maybe an unorthodox one but I wouldn’t change it.
“He might find HOYS a bit overwhelming; it’s an evening crowd, lots of atmosphere, but I hope he will be able to relax in the ring. He always looks for my mum and she’ll be there.
“On a good day he has the potential to be right up there in the placings, but my goal is just to make it the best experience for him that I can and no matter what happens, I’ll be so proud of him.
“I’m so happy and so proud of him; with his life experience, he could have just said, ‘No, I don’t enjoy this, don’t want to do anything’. He could have totally just not engaged with people but he really has. I’m so proud of him, and thankful to him that he’s tried so hard, to be the horse he is.”
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Eleanor is an experienced journalist who spent over eight years working for local and national newspapers before joining H&H as news editor in March 2016. Passionate about equine welfare and exposing the truth, Eleanor has reported on all aspects of the industry, from Brexit to anti-bullying campaigns, and from dressage rules to mules. Her sport of choice is showjumping, in which she competes her own horses, and she also enjoys reporting at local jumping shows through to international championships.