Olympic eventer Sam Watson has paid tribute to his first top horse, who changed his life, shaped his future – and was his best friend.
Home-bred Bushman, who ran with different prefixes, spent his life with Sam, taking him to his first youth championships – and to complete four Badmintons, three European and two World Championships and a Burghley, as well as being the first horse to earn 1,000 Eventing Ireland points. He stayed with the family to enjoy a happy retirement until his age caught up with him and he had to be put down last week at 26.
Sam told H&H that had it not been for “George”, he would have stopped eventing, but the Puissance gelding ignited his love for the sport.
“He was the ultimate footsteps in the sand partner,” he said. “There were times when I let him down more than usual and he found a way to carry us both home. He was brave, generous, sympathetic and he absolutely adored the sport.”
Sam was 13 when George was born, just old enough, he said, to have started helping with the foals, so he knew him from the start. But he and George were not intended to be a partnership.
“My sister Rozzie was doing juniors at the time, and he was a beautiful, very striking foal, with a lot of presence,” he said. “So she singled him out and thought ‘This is, this is going to be my first Badminton horse’. She was definitely first in line and I actually wasn’t that interested. I wasn’t really doing that much on horses at the time. I was probably more happy just leading him around and being on the ground.”
First outing
So Rozzie took George to his first competition as a four-year-old – a day that did not end well.
“He tripped over a cross-pole or something in the warm-up, and didn’t even get in the ring, and she went off to A&E,” he said. “That was 20-odd years ago and I still mention it to her all the time!”
Rozzie was not badly hurt, and she and George carried on.
“As a four- and five-year-old, he was very spooky,” Sam said. “Rosie tried him in young event horse classes, and he just kept spooking and stopping at things. She thought he was too much horse and my dad was still riding at the time, so he did a couple with him, but without much success either.
“So I was actually third in line. It was just ‘We’ve got to do something’. It’s typical; we couldn’t sell him, because he was a horse who was stopping at ditches and water and anything that looked a bit suspicious. So I took the reins at the back end of his five-year-old year.”
The Watsons did not think George would be a young rider horse as Sam only had one more year in that age group, and George by then was only seven.
“And he hadn’t shown much promise,” he said. “But that was the year he took off.”
Sam said George was an intelligent horse, and maybe, having spooked and stopped as a youngster who was working things out, he then realised what it was all about, and that he enjoyed it.
“In a way, we were two young lads who didn’t really know what we were doing, but we suited each other,” he said. “I guess I was brave, and that maybe gave him a bit of confidence; I’d put my leg on and off we’d go, we’d just hunt along.
“I didn’t have high expectations; he was my only horse really at the time, and hadn’t been doing much. I think it probably even helped the fact that plan A had been to be Rozzie’s horse, and we were kind of plan B, but we suited each other.”
First championship
George, aged seven, and Sam went to a very wet young rider Europeans in 2006, where they finished a whisker off an individual medal in fourth.
“That was when we realised he liked the mud!” Sam said. “Once he got the hang of it, there was no stopping him. It really suited me, because I could just keep cantering, across country, and if there was a trick, all I’d have to do is sit up a bit and he’d back himself off. He was never going to be too brave that he’d get into trouble or anything, and once the penny dropped, he was the perfect partner. If I was wrong, he’d put himself right, because he was intelligent and he looked at what he was doing.
“I think it really goes to show that this sport is so much about partnership and trust, and if at first it’s not succeeding, that doesn’t mean it never will. You’ve got to work it out, give them time and not put too much pressure on. It took a good while for the penny to drop with him; three years of learning, but from that seven-year-old season, he was phenomenal.”
The following year, aged eight, George was one of only a handful of horses who went clear inside the time at Boekelo three-star (now four-star) – and “there was no stopping him”, Sam said, which changed his own direction.
“In 2008 I was in my final year at college and very much thinking that as soon as I finished uni, I’d go and get a real job, and there wouldn’t be time for horses,” he said. “That’s kind of what Rozzie had done; young riders, and then gone and worked as an estate agent and never really went any further. I thought I’d do the same thing.
A different future
“So if it hadn’t been for him, there would certainly have been no eventing. Even the timing – I was born on 28 December, and if I’d had another year in young riders, I’d have taken it, I don’t think I would have stepped up, I don’t think I’d have gone as well, and I think it would all have fizzled out. But we were out of young riders. So then I think Barbary was my first four-star, and then that spin around Boekelo, it gave me the thrill of eventing, I just thought, ‘This is life – this is it’. I got the drug and, and I had a partner who suited me and wanted to do it. So that was it.”
The combination went on to success at the very top, and Sam picked out their win at Hopetoun three-star (now four-star) in 2011 as a highlight, as they beat the likes of Nicola Wilson and William Fox-Pitt on three horses to take the victory.
“That was the first time I realised that we could actually be all right,” Sam said. “That was huge progress, for me and him. I think he’ll always be, I’ll always remember him as, the horse who brought me into the sport and who I learned with, and we did everything with, and I would always describe him as my best friend. But there was the competitive side as well. I think it’s really nice we did do the odd polished performance as well and pull off a few good ones.”
“To do what we did, you need to find a horse brave enough but forgiving enough, intelligent enough, kind enough,” he added. “I didn’t know what I was doing, and he didn’t know. I hadn’t inherited him off someone, we had to learn everything together. So he’d be doing his first Badminton, but at the same time he was looking after me. And I think that’s just incredible. You need an incredible horse to do that.”
So without George, there would have been no eventing, no EquiRatings – and no Hannah. Sam met his wife, known as Sparks, when he was at Pau with George in 2008, so “my equine partner of a lifetime connected me to my human partner of a lifetime”.
Part of the family
Sam added that other highlights were winning the Mallow and Cappoquin three-stars – but that mainly he remembers George being part of the family.
“With the kids and him, we had the family,” he said. “He was very much Sparks’s horse as well; he was such a family horse. And I think, the fact that I’d ridden him as a young rider, and he took me to France, to where I met Sparks, then Sparks and I had this journey through all these championships and Badmintons, and we did all that.
“I think it was in the latter stages of his career when we had the kids – that Mallow one in particular, it was just that George had kept going and everyone knew him, and he’d done all the championships and things like that. He was just our family horse that I think everyone appreciated as well. And when he won, everyone would be so happy for him; for Ireland as well. He’d done a lot and contributed a lot. I guess I just remember pushing the buggy around with the kids and being a family and having George. And it was a good day.”
Sam added that George was not flash or an attention-seeker. He was quiet and composed, and adored Sparks.
“I like to think he had a soft spot for me as well!” he added.
“I think when you have a horse that long; when you go away to championships and things, and spend a lot of time with a horse, you start to just see them differently. It’s like seeing a person you really know. The whole best friend thing – I don’t throw that term around lightly. And even at the age of 26, that kind eye he had was still there, and he was still himself. And it was great he kept that.”
Happy retirement
George jumped double clear at his last event, Ballindenisk in 2017, then settled into his retirement. Sam’s mother hacked him a few times but “I don’t think she had quite as much control as she would have liked, so that didn’t last too long!” Sam said. So he lived happily in the field, acting as Uncle George to some of the youngsters, and part of the family to the end, when the call had to be made.
“It was the hardest thing,” Sam said. “I know it was the right thing but Christ, it was hard. I can’t remember the last time I had tears running down my cheek, and it was always going to be tough.
“But it’s so amazing to reflect on it now. It’s been a long time since I thought of events like Hopetoun, and all those championships and those first Badmintons. It’s been lovely and special to reflect on it all.
“Thank you, my boy. Eternal love, gratitude and admiration from us all.”
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