‘He’s the king of the stable’: oldest horse and youngest rider win to qualify for national championships

The youngest rider and oldest horse in the Seaver Diamond qualifier at Leyland Court are heading to the Blue Chip Winter Showjumping Championships, having beaten 20 other combinations to take the win.

Issy James Wright and Calle, 13 and 25 respectively, finished over a second ahead of their nearest rivals, Patrick Brewer and Pentons Who’s Who, on 5 January to earn their ticket to the finals at Addington Equestrian in April.

Issy’s mother Kath James told H&H Calle came to them at the end of 2022, when Issy and her twin sister Daisy were 11.

“We were at the nationals and I was talking to Tracy Priest, who’s a good friend of mine, and who said the girls would be moving on to horses soon,” Kath said. “She was with her daughter Phoebe [Farman] and said ‘Should we give them Calle?’. Phoebe said ‘Yes, they’re lovely kids’; they were having a conversation and I didn’t have a clue which horse they were talking about! But they said they’d tried to retire him and he wouldn’t; he wanted a job.”

Kath said she was very grateful to be given the horse for her daughters but knew nothing about him until after she had picked him up.

“When I searched his name [in British Showjumping records] I saw he’d won £57,000!” she said. “He came third in the Queen Elizabeth Cup with Tracy in 2010, and won area trials, and when she passed him on to Phoebe, they jumped double clear in the youth Nations Cup final and won the gold medal. I said to the kids: ‘This horse is a superstar, he’s the king of the stable’!”

Kath said Issy took the rider over Daisy as the latter felt she was a bit small, and once the pair had got to know each other, they went to their first show together in June 2023.

“We went to a three-day junior show to do the children-on-horses classes, just to take it easy – and they had two wins and came second,” Kath said. “He’s so quick and nimble and careful, and so fast picking his legs up; I’d love to clone him and have a yard full of him as he’s just brilliant. He’s like an old man in his ways; you can imagine him sitting by the fire with his pipe and slippers, then when he knows he’s being ridden, he does his yoga move and stretches all the way down. He’s a real character and we love him.”

Kath said at Issy’s first senior BS show, aged 12, she was desperate to beat her mother.

“She said ‘I don’t want you to let me win’,” Kath said. “We walked the course and I said I was going to do this turn and that turn and she said she’d do the same. I went in and went into the lead; I was coming to the last line, taking a stride out and thinking ‘That was really childish to try to beat my own daughter who’s only 12, I should have let her win’, then she went in three horses later and absolutely blitzed me, beat me anyway – and her round looked a lot smoother than mine!”

The pair have since had great success, including placings at their first international competition, at Bolesworth last summer, and their Diamond win last weekend.

“She was over the moon with that,” Kath said. “I’m so proud of her; I’d have been happy just to qualify, it’s brilliant to have won the class.

“Calle is fantastic. We’re so lucky Tracy let us have him and it’s lovely as he’s jumped 1.60m tracks and now he’s having great fun jumping the 95cm/1m classes. I’ve seen videos of him jumping those courses in his prime and his technique is just the same now – and he loves it.”

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