“I am old!” exclaimed Defender Burghley first-timer Anthony Clark after his dressage test aboard Ballinaguikey Fortunus today (4 September).

At 52, this is a milestone moment in his lengthy riding career. He has produced and sold 11 horses that have gone on to compete at the very top level, including the Olympics, but this is the first time he has ridden at five-star himself.

“I’ve done loads of four stars, but never gone five-star because I’ve sold the horses to pay my mortgage and pay my bills,” said Anthony. “But he’s one that’s just managed to stay with me, and I feel privileged to have him in my yard.”

Fortune first arrived at Anthony’s yard aged nine, with the intention of producing and selling him on.

“A great friend of mine bought him from Vere Phillips, and she had a life change and had to sell the horse, so he came to me to be sold and I really liked him.

“He was only jumping 80cm, but I liked his cheeky nature, so I got a group of friends to buy him and we produced him up to three-star. Then he was worth quite a lot of money and a lady was going to buy him, but she was put off because he’s got a slight arthritic change in the knee.

“In the end, I said I’ll run him as mine. In two years he’s been clear around all his four-stars, and just made things quite easy. I always said he’d be a five-star horse and I’m very old, so I thought now’s my chance to maybe try it.”

A five-star that almost didn’t happen

Anthony has represented Great Britain twice at the FEI Jumping European Championship for Veterans — for riders aged over 45 — winning bronze on both occasions with another horse.

“He’d [Fortune] probably be quite good at that because he’s very careful, but his job is this at the moment,” said Anthony.

Burghley is famed for being a particularly tough five-star, and it wasn’t originally the plan for Anthony to make his five-star debut here.

He entered Fortune for Pau last year, but a boot rub that required antibiotics ruled them out. Badminton in the spring was next on the list, only for the horse to develop cellulitis three weeks before the event.

“I was showjumping in Belgium four weeks ago, and I spoke to my vet and I said, ‘What do you think? Do you think he’s ready to go?’ And she said, ‘Suck it up and see. Just enter him and see how he is.’ So we entered him, and look, by chance, I’m here now.

“It’s probably the hardest five-star. I think the terrain makes it really hard,” added Anthony, who has sought advice from Caroline Powell and Louise Bell.

“He’s a really good jumper, so if it doesn’t pan out, I’ll just have to pull up, go home, and then rethink things. I only live in Cambridge, so it’s not very far. At least I haven’t travelled a million miles to get here.”

The one who stayed

Among the horses Anthony has sourced and produced are Jolly Bo, who competed at the 2018 World Equestrian Games with Canadian rider Hawley Bennett-Awad, and Figaro Van Het Broekxhof, who won the Lycetts Grantham Cup at Belton in March 2019.

“It takes me a lot of pride, you know, because I sourced them, I bought them on, I loved them,” said Anthony.

“It was never that I didn’t want to do a five-star myself, I just needed to buy horses to sell on to pay bills because it costs money to keep afloat, doesn’t it? Life gets in the way.

“I’ve got some lovely horses at home. It’s just a stock production line — I like buying horses. I’ve got 40!”

Image by Tim Wilkinson

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