The owner of a 50p former Flat racehorse who is now an international showjumper – after a four-year registration battle – said she hopes this shows exactly what thoroughbreds can do.
Jessie Welch and The Iron Factor contested their first CSI event at Wellington last weekend, jumping clear in a small tour and a big tour class and contesting the 1.25m big tour final, a few weeks after the FEI agreed to accept his Jockey Club US passport.
“It’s taken a few years but this has really been the biggest achievement of my time with him,” Jessie told H&H. “It was an incredible show, I’m very happy. He’s been a godsend to me.”
Jessie used to work in racing and heard through a friend that “Sexy” was looking for a new home.
“He only ran three times – bless him, he wasn’t very good!” she said. “I worked for a pre-trainer who was best friends with his owner, and they wanted a home for him.
“I was unfortunate enough that my horse had an injury, and Alan just said ‘Look, there’s a field of old horses there, four- and five-year-olds; pick one and take it home’. I thought ‘That one looks sweet’.
“I didn’t know his name, I knew nothing about him, I just picked him out of the field, thank you very much, and took him home. I paid 50p to have him and he’s been mine ever since. I didn’t have a clue what I had.”
Giving it a go
Jessie said she had enjoyed team chasing and following bloodhounds, and had no thought of showjumping.
“I think I just saw an advert somewhere, and thought, ‘I could have a go at this showjumping malarkey’,” she said. “I hadn’t jumped much at all but thought ‘We’ll give it a crack’.
“I took him to one his first lesson in a racing saddle and exercise sheet, and my trainer looked at me and said ‘Wow, this is a racehorse’, and I said yes; he’d never seen a fence in his life.
“I took him to his first show, a 30cm cross-pole class, and he took nine of the 12 fences down but I thought ‘We’ll keep trying’ and he got better and better, and he loved it.”
Jessie said she found a good trainer, and took the view of starting him in showjumping as she would any horse.
“I just thought ‘Treat him like a warmblood, working him like a warmblood as he’s no different’,” she said. “And it’s paid off.
“My first trainer said he was a thoroughbred and they’re not designed to jump and that was that. It wasn’t plain sailing – he had kissing spines surgery as a five-year-old – but when I brought him back I was training with Ben Bick, who didn’t ask what he was.
“He didn’t care that he was a thoroughbred, he just trained us like we were showjumpers and he said ‘You’ve got a really smart horse here, and you’ll have a lot of fun with him’.”
Huge support
Ben then moved away and Jessie came south to be based with showjumper Joe Clayton at Hascombe Equestrian.
“I ended up working full-time for Joe; I have my horses there, and he’s really put us through our paces,” she said. “It’s only really the last six months, but he’s had me jumping big tracks with him. He’s been a massive mentor and supporter to me.”
Four years ago, Sexy was jumping so well, Jessie tried to register him with the FEI to jump internationally, along with another horse she had. But Sexy’s passport didn’t arrive.
“They said his US passport wasn’t deemed legitimate by the FEI so he couldn’t be registered,” she said. “I thought it would be simple but there wasn’t a way round it. I couldn’t re-passport him as he was chipped and had a passport, and effectively he was one of the most traceable horses in the country as a racehorse. But no one would overstamp it.”
Jessie added that a major issue was the lack of a page in Sexy’s passport on which he could be signed out of the human food chain.
“Not a single passport company was happy to add the page,” she said. “I didn’t know what an issue it would be. I fought but never got anywhere.”
Sexy was then out for a few months with an injury, but when he came back into work, Jessie tried again.
“I thought ‘I’m going to fight for this now, this is ridiculous’,” she said. “‘I’m with a trainer who’s travelling around Europe at internationals, and I’ve got a horse who if I’m away two in every four weeks, I’m having to leave at home. This is stupid’.
Fighting the case
“My vet got in contact with a top vet at the FEI, and they had a woman called Jen Ancliff call me from British Equestrian, and she has fought my case for the last six months.”
Thanks to Ms Ancliff’s work, and after meetings with Defra, the FEI accepted Sexy in April.
“I was straight on the case, I think I cried when they emailed to say it was ok!” Jessie said. “They wanted a scanned copy of every page of his passport – I think I had 64 pages scanned within about three minutes. You could say it’s four years too late but to be able to go to his first international and jump what he’s jumped and how he’s jumped it, means more than anything to me.”
Jessie had not had as much time as would have been ideal to get Sexy fit so at Wellington she started with the 1.10m small tour class.
“He flew round and Joe said ‘Try him in the big tour’, then he flew that 1.20m on day two,” she said. “Then Joe said to try him in the 1.25m and we had two poles; rider error that I can improve on. To me, it was a big track, and he took me round with his ears pricked the whole way; ‘I’ve got this’.”
Jessie said that there are not many thoroughbreds jumping internationally and it is nice that Sexy can “fly the flag a bit” for his breed.
“A lot of people wouldn’t realise that a thoroughbred or ex-racehorse is capable of that,” she said. “I think there is a bit of ‘That’s an ex-racehorse, it’s not capable’ but unless you told someone he was a thoroughbred, they wouldn’t know.
Picture by Charlotte Bury Photography
“He’s in these classes, and he’s competitive; we’re not bottom of the pack, or trying to push him to a level he’s struggling with, he’s getting better and better, and up there with the best of them. To me that means everything, because it’s shown what they can do.”
Jessie added that sometimes people do not have the right attitude to former racehorses.
“People might think they’re just a cheap thoroughbred and just do happy hacking without thinking they’ve got the ability,” she said. “This has taken us a while and we’ve had ups and downs but ultimately he’s gone from a horse who took every fence in a 30cm class to being competitive in a 1.25m.
“I’ve entered him for Bolesworth and that’s bigger again but my goal has always been to jump a 1.30m, and now I’d like to think maybe it’ll be a 1.30m international, there. That’s the ultimate goal.”
She added that Sexy loves his jumping, and plays up to a big atmosphere.
“He goes in there and properly struts his stuff,” she said. “He’s just a happy horse, always has his ears pricked and he’s the easiest animal to do anything with.
“He sleeps all day, he loves life, he’s spoilt rotten; does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, and he pays me back every minute of the day. He’s an absolute darling. I adore every inch of him.”
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