Jasean Spraggett

The show rider, coach and course-builder is garnering a reputation as one of the most versatile and forward-thinking young people in showing. Alex Robinson meets last year’s HOYS lightweight hunter victor

- Alex Robinson

JUST 10 months ago Jasean Spraggett hit the headlines when she took home one of the most prestigious crowns at the Horse of the Year Show (HOYS). Competing in the lightweight hunters – one of the hardest classes to crack – against the country’s leading show horse producers, Jasean became an overnight inspiration for many young riders who are perhaps tentative about taking on the crème de la crème of showing.

“I had been banging on for ages about how I was never going to win at HOYS again and that I must just be useless,” reflects Jasean, 28, who had her first NEC centre line moment 16 years before in the open mountain and moorlands (M&Ms) with Welsh section A Springbourne Camelot.

Jasean’s victorious hunter was her exceptionally talented mare Noble Queen Bee (Sally) who had jumped round the Cuddy working hunter final to stand fifth 48 hours earlier. In the lightweights Sally was awarded a near-perfect 49/50 for her ride, four marks clear of second place.

“She’s a real old-fashioned stamp with an amazing gallop,” says Jasean, who bought Sally from the Underwoods in 2017. She was persuaded to give the hunter classes a go with her by showman Magnus Nicholson. “I grew up around those ‘proper’ hunter people, the likes of Nigel Oliver and John Rawding, so my preference of horse has been influenced by that time in my life; I like something traditional in type with plenty of substance. I used to go to the Rawdings’ yard at Church Farm as a child, at the same time as Hayden Hankey who also won at HOYS last year.