What do you do when you lose your rider early on in a team chase? You keep going regardless, and cross the finish line solo feeling pretty proud of yourself.
That’s what Mo did, anyway, in the Cotswold Team Chase on 28 October, leaving his owner Emma Masters to video him finishing in style.
Emma told H&H her team for the day, the Fake McCoys, were ushered to the start before she was completely ready.
“I hadn’t realised we were about to go so I still had one glove and my phone in my hand, and I set off one-handed,” she said. “I managed to stuff my phone in my pocket but couldn’t get my other glove on, so I jumped the first fence one-handed too.
“He was going really nicely but at one jump, unfortunately the two horses in front of us hesitated a bit, he hesitated too and I wasn’t prepared, and I went over his shoulder. I could hear everyone shouting ‘Loose horse’, and I could see him still up there with the other three.”
Rescue came in the form of a man driving a quad bike, to collect Emma, who said he was on his walkie-talkie trying to decide where to take her.
“I said we might as well go back as I thought he’d finish it,” she said. “I got back in time to video him coming over the finish line without me. He stopped with the others, proud as punch that he’d managed to do it.”
Pictures and videos captured around the course, including by Emma’s boyfriend Greg Williams, show Mo tackling the jumps, including some of the intermediate options rather than the novice he was supposed to be doing, with style.
“He was quite happy going round with the others, having the time of his life!” Emma said. “Next time, I might just let him go at the start and he can do it without me.”
Emma has owned the 12-year-old gelding for five years, and described him as a “16.2hh mutt”, out of a Cleveland Bay mare, by a thoroughbred/Arab/Hanoverian stallion. The pair have had a quieter year in 2023 owing to a diagnosis of ulcers but Mo has since scoped clear so they are back in action, much to the delight of Mo’s 32,000 followers on Facebook.
“He’s like a big happy labrador; the nicest personality,” Emma said. “Everyone loves him.
“I was put in a last-minute team and I think they were just happy to finish, while we packed up and headed home. But Mo had absolutely flown round, he loved it!”
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