It’s never an easy time when our beloved animals leave us, but it is the right moment to remember the incredible memories they gave us. So, when Your Horse asked me to look back on Blueberry and Uti, I knew I wanted to celebrate their magic, their quirks, and the joy they brought to the world.
I was lucky enough to share a lifetime’s worth of unforgettable moments with them, and I’ll cherish those memories forever.
Valegro — the ultimate showman
Blueberry loved his audience. He always knew when a crowd was there for him, and he rose to every occasion with that generous heart of his.
I’ll never forget one year at Your Horse Live; Charlotte was inside the arena riding a young horse, and Blueberry and I were waiting behind the curtains.
She was chatting away and the organisers were trying to hurry her up. Blueberry, deciding enough was enough, poked his head straight through the curtain. The crowd went crazy, and he absolutely loved it.
He adored meeting people. You could walk him around an arena with masses of spectators lining the fence, and he’d insist on greeting every single person, nudging pockets, demanding pats, refusing to leave until he’d worked the room like the true superstar he was.
A real lad’s lad
The first time I looked after him was when we travelled to the south of France for his first international grand prix. None of us realised then that we were on the brink of something extraordinary.
Blueberry won two grand prixs and two specials in just two weeks. Suddenly the whole world was talking about this wonder horse from Gloucestershire.
I’d seen him competing briefly as a young horse, but caring for him on that trip was the start of a bond that defined a huge part of my life.
Blueberry had this extraordinary ability to switch on and off. At home he was a real lad’s lad and you could imagine him chilling with a pint and a pack of crisps at the pub.
But the moment he entered an arena, his whole body changed: “They’ve come to see me, so I’m going to give them a show.”
Then when the test was done, Charlotte would drop the reins and he’d stroll out on a loose rein, admiring his fans. He was a true performer.
I always say, one of my greatest achievements is that these amazing horses I was lucky enough to look after completely trusted me.
Planes, trains, lorries, whatever strange automobile turned up, Blueberry would follow me on board without question. As long as he had his food and drink, he’d go anywhere in the world and always travelled like a pro.
Champion hay-dunker
He was a champion hay-dunker and sometimes I’d have four water buckets in his stable, because he’d fill them with hay and I’d worry there was no water left to drink.
He loved his food and I had to watch both his and my waistline closely. Most horses come home from shows a bit lighter — Blueberry and I came home having eaten our way around the world.
He would eat anything put in front of him, even aeroplane food.
Turn out and rolling was important to Valegro, but eating always came first — eat then roll.
I had to be the first person on the yard in the morning so I could feed him first: if someone else arrived before me, he’d bang on the door until he’d eventually open the door and let himself out.
A beautiful freestyle after just one practice
We changed his freestyle music before the World Cup Final in Lyon to ‘How to train your dragon’, but only managed to practise it once the day before we left, in the rain, with the CD blaring out the back of my car.
It took two days to drive him there, and I spent the whole time panicking about how he was going to perform having hardly practiced the test.
When he entered the ring, he did the most beautiful test.
His piaffe at the end was so in sync with the music that I swear he was listening to it. I was in floods of tears and had to run from the ‘Kiss and Cry’ zone because I didn’t want the cameras to catch me blubbing.
He loved hacking and chatting to cows
I couldn’t let go of his routine for ages after he retired. I kept him trimmed, polished and looking immaculate every day just in case anyone popped down the drive to see him.
He was kept ticking over and loved hacking and chatting to the cows and neighbours along the way — everyone fought to ride him on the Boxing Day yard ride.
Even in retirement, if Blueberry heard my voice across the yard, he knew exactly where I was. And he always let me know if he was annoyed.
I was away with Nip Tuck for two weeks for the World Cup finals and when I came back, I called Blueberry, and he looked the other way, which nearly floored me. It was as though to say “you’ve been away without me, so I’m not talking to you”.
I used to warm him up and cool him down and I remember giving him a stretch in the arena one day.
No one else was around, and as we changed the diagonal, we somehow ended up doing a row of one-time changes and it felt so incredible.
I was gutted there was no one there to witness it! He was just amazing.
Uthopia — the gentleman stallion
Uti was the most polite stallion you could ever meet. I first properly looked after him when we took him to a judges’ seminar at Hartpury.
He hadn’t been seen much, so I had to get him spruced up and plaited. He stood like a saint. Watching him go at the seminar, I remember thinking, “My goodness… This one is special.”
His first big international grand prix was in Germany, where he finished third among the German giants. People immediately started talking about his exceptional extended trot — it was just out of this world.
Waving his forelegs at trot ups
Although he was amazingly behaved for a stallion, he did have the odd cheeky moment. I used to get the job of trotting him up as Carl and Charlotte were both too scared.
He’d trot up the first stretch lovely and then at the end, before we turned round to trot back, he’d pop up on his hind legs, wave his forelegs about dramatically, then drop back down and carry on as if nothing had happened.
Even then, he never frightened me. He was always polite.
The only time I ever saw him genuinely excited was at the Swarovski show in the Austrian mountains.
A truck arrived carrying six Camargue mares, and when they unloaded loose and were being herded into their stables, Uti’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.
Jumping puddles
He was wonderful to take away, easy on the lorry and happy to hand-graze anywhere in the world. At Windsor one year, he was stabled next to the collecting ring and spent hours watching the coloured cobs and Shetland ponies having never seen them before, eyes on stalks as if to say, “Dad, what on earth is THAT?”
He hacked beautifully, though puddles were another story; he preferred to jump them, gracefully of course, but still enough to terrify me.
I rode Uti at Your Horse Live once or twice to warm him up for Carl. I was pretty terrified but he looked after me beautifully. He piaffed on the spot during an interview — I knew Carl wasn’t impressed but there wasn’t much I could do — then calmly walked off as if nothing had happened.
After London 2012, he briefly swapped riders, going from Carl to Charlotte and back to Carl so the British team had a championship horse for the Europeans.
To change riders and still perform at that level like he did is enormous, but his generosity made it possible. It said everything about his character.
Post-breakfast naps
Uti always looked like a show horse, even after retirement. His coat was so beautiful that I hardly had to clip him, he just gleamed.
Even when he was dozing (which was often as he loved a nap after breakfast), he sparkled. And his temperament was so good that we once did an entire management shoot for Your Horse with him, bandaging, poulticing, the lot, and he didn’t move a muscle.
He posed like a true professional. He was just amazing.
Forever grateful
It’s sad that they’re gone, but the truth is, these horses shaped my life, and I’ll be forever indebted to them for everything they taught me and for the journey we travelled together.
When I started my career, I never dreamt I’d have the privilege of caring for horses who would take me all over the world and change not only my life, but the sport itself.
The outpouring of love and emotion from people around the world has shown just how deeply they were admired. Their memories are etched in my heart forever.
Main image of Valegro at Your Horse Live by Matthew Roberts. All images © Your Horse Library
