After 13 unforgettable years at the Petplan Area Festival Championships, Chantelle Oliver-Symonds and her 20-year-old spotty dressage horse delivered a fairytale finale, winning the inter I freestyle title.
Stadmorslow Coffee N Cream (Harvey) – an Appaloosa/Welsh D gelding –is no longer eligible to compete at Area Festivals, and Chantelle said winning this last rug and sash was the perfect way to bow out.
“Winning that rug and sash with Harvey, especially now he’s 20, meant the world to me,” said Chantelle. “He’s my horse of a lifetime.”
Chantelle and Harvey’s journey is the stuff of inspiration. The Craigcoach Midas gelding was bought for just £200 at three years old, and together they’ve risen from prelim to grand prix.
“We’ve done it all without financial backing, just hard work and the right partnership,” Chantelle said. “It shows that dreams really can come true.”
Their performance was set to an upbeat 1990s medley – a freestyle of Chantelle’s own creation that perfectly captured the joy of their journey.
The accountant turned freestyle producer wove together Steps’ Tragedy, Geri Halliwell’s version of It’s Raining Men and the Vengaboys’ We’re Going to Ibiza into a cheeky, crowd-pleasing routine. That Vengaboys track is now featured in Lottie Fry’s Glamourdale Airlines freestyle. Great minds clearly think alike.
“I wanted to make people smile, and it did just that,” Chantelle added. “We had a little mistake in the pirouette, but the rest felt amazing.”
“There were plenty of comments from those watching who thoroughly enjoyed it,” she added with a laugh. “I had it before Lottie!”
“I found him in the Horse & Hound sales adverts”
Looking back on their journey together, Chantelle said: “I originally went out to buy an all-rounder but mainly to hack. We’re not from a horsey background, nor did we have the money to spend on any major horsepower. And if we’re honest, we didn’t really know what we were looking for!
“So when I found Harvey in the H&H sales adverts – a tiny little photograph of this gorgeous little yellow horse – I thought I had to get him. So much so, I told a small white lie to my dad, who was driving me to go and view him, that he was in Cardiff… not Carmarthenshire! Safe to say he wasn’t pleased when we sailed past the Cardiff junction and I declared we had another two hours to go.”
Their progress through the levels wasn’t all plain sailing. “We tried our hand at eventing, notably our first British Eventing, where we scored a whopping 46% in the dressage,” Chantelle recalled. “But I had a nasty fall in 2011, and it knocked our confidence so much. Despite trying to drop down and rebuild it, it was clear that jumping wasn’t for us.
“I actually put him up for sale, but my sister reminded me that we couldn’t sell a horse that I kept falling off. So we took him to a local family fun show at Warminster Saddle Club, which was holding a Cricklands Championships of GB qualifier.
“He managed to get his ticket and from there won double gold with over 75% across the four tests over the weekend. The prize was a British Dressage class ticket, and as they say, the rest is history!”
“Dreams don’t have deadlines”
On their long road to grand prix, Chantelle admits that flying changes were the biggest challenge. “The changes have been super hard for us as he learned to change late behind, so having to go back and re-teach a chronically late change when I had no idea what I was doing either wasn’t the easiest,” she said.
“We found that the best way was to do it quietly in our own space with several tubes of Polos in my pocket, which has made it a bit embarrassing now when he then turns round for one in a test! Because of his conformation, as soon as he gets any tension over his back, naturally it becomes harder for him to step through, so our main focus is always on relaxation.
“On the flip side, his conformation, despite not being typical for a dressage horse, has been a gift at the higher levels. He’s really compact and finds the collection so easy – pirouettes and piaffe are his absolute favourite things to show off and are normally the highlight of his test.”
Now, as the veteran gelding joins the gold section and steps up to grand prix, he will no longer be eligible to compete at Area Festivals – but Chantelle isn’t rushing any decisions about his future.
“He’s going to carry on being in work, but he’s now done his first grand prix and will be in the gold section for the rest of time, so we can’t do this any more!” she said.
“We are going to play around at grand prix until Christmas. After that, we’ll start to bring him down the levels. He’s a brain that likes to be busy, so retirement isn’t going to be for him.
“But we’d like to retire him sound and happy, which hopefully won’t be for a few years yet.”
“We didn’t have money or breeding behind us”
For Chantelle, Harvey’s personality is every bit as special as his achievements. “He’s such a lovely person, and is everyone’s best friend,” she said.
“My advice for anyone in a similar position to us would be to find a horse that, above all, you love, regardless of their ability.
“Although it certainly helps to have a horse with magnificent breeding and to have financial backing, I think Harvey proves that you don’t need to have those things to help reach your dreams; a good brain for me is much more important.
“It’s taken a long time for us to get to where we are, but the journey has been amazing. Every year, I’ve set what I call my ‘annual crazy goal’ and forced myself to step outside my comfort zone.
“Whether that’s giving a new level a go, aiming for a championship, or going to our first Premier League – which was very scary on a little yellow horse – it’s helped me stay focused on training and making steady progress with him.”
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