Tributes to legendary showjumping pony Colton Maelstrom
Hailed as Britain’s best jumping pony and probably the most prolific winner of pony showjumping classes in the world, Colton Maelstrom was put to sleep on Monday (15 October), aged 26.
“Apey” went to her first European Championships in 1994 and attended 12 consecutive Europeans with eight different riders, winning three individual and eight team golds.
She is one of just two ponies – the other being Marian Coates’ Stroller – so far inducted into the British Horse Society Hall of Fame.
Liz Edgar told H&H why she deserved that accolade.
“It was phenomenal, the way she kept winning gold after gold with successive riders,” she said.
Apey developed Cushings disease in recent months.
Northern Irish rider Emma Wilson won gold with Apey at the 1995 and 1996 pony Europeans and bought her back seven years ago.
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“She was a full thoroughbred who didn’t grow and was so keen to jump, although she was quite highly strung,” Emma told H&H.
The mare was on British pony team chef d’equipe Katrina Moore’s Essex yard for seven years while she was ridden on British teams by sisters Alice and Martha Beaumont, then Natasha Sewell and William Whitaker.
Mrs Moore said: “She was incredibly rideable, the sort of pony who could win every day of the week for you.” Emma added: “She didn’t really like being in the field, she liked to be working.”
Apey has had three foals by embryo transfer, the oldest of which is five years old.
View H&H’s celebration of Colton Maelstrom’s career in pictures
This news story was first published in the current issue of H&H (18 October 2012)
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A self-confessed newshound, farmer’s daughter and journalist of many years' experience, Charlotte worked on regional papers before joining H&H in 2007. A regular rider, she visited Ireland in 2010 to investigate the fate of Irish horses through the recession, to much acclaim, and reported from the FEI General Assembly in Rio de Janeiro in 2011. She left Horse & Hound in March 2013.