Jeff Osborne

Fast, fearless, nearly 90 and not out – Jeff Osborne tells Eleanor Jones why his wild ride through bikes, planes and ponies is far from over

- Eleanor Jones

“I'VE done an awful lot in my lifetime,” says Jeff Osborne. “And everything I've been involved in is fast.”

The founder of Osborne Refrigerators, a name known throughout the equestrian world, has done it all, within horse sport as well as outside it. But as he enters his 90th year, it's the scurry driving that continues to inspire him to compete - and succeed - week after week.

“It’s you and the ponies,” he says. “Nobody else's views on it matter at all; if you make a mistake, you made a mistake. It’s all about the rapport between you and your ponies, and when I started, that was - and still is - the adrenaline.”

Jeff founded Osborne Refrigerators 65 years ago, and it's going strong, as one of only a few companies still manufacturing fridges in the country.

But as well as working hard, he's played hard along the way too; his interests as well as - or before - horses include skiing all over the world, motorbike racing and flying in an air display team.

“I took my pilot's licence a long time ago,” he says. “We had a display team called the Red Sparrows - the aeroplanes weren't red, they were white, actually, but the name seemed appropriate. I once flew the Red Arrows commentator back and it was the first time he'd ever got home before his team.”

Then there was the motorbike racing, which came about as the sport used to be on the television on a Saturday afternoon and “I wanted to qualify and get on the television”.

And did he? “Oh yes,” he says. But then his children got him into horses instead.