Horses that made me

Laura Collett picks the six horses with the biggest influence on her career

- Laura Collett

SUPER SIX

Penwayn Ryan
“Win or bust”

TUBBY, as we called him, was an 11.2hh Welsh section A that we got off the Welsh mountains as a feral, unbroken pony. I broke him in and he ended up going supreme at Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) when I was 13. That was really my farewell to showing, which I’d been doing since I was six.

I remember thinking that he might just bolt back to the lorry. He did it once at Royal Three Counties - turned round and bolted out of the arena midway through!

Tubby was the first to teach me about the highs and lows of the sport - it was win or bust. It felt pretty epic just to get to HOYS; going supreme was a final hurrah.

Walnut
“The one that stopped me giving up”

WALNUT was my first horse - and the only one that I hadn't produced from the beginning. He was a schoolmaster who'd been there, done it and got the T-shirt. We had him on loan and he was a legend in the Heythrop branch of the Pony Club.

He was 15.2hh but rode more like a pony than Spring (Noble Springbok) - you just had to keep kicking. We did two years of Pony Club and JRN (junior regional novice) championships. He scored my first three-day win, which was the last three-day with roads, tracks and steeplechase.

Spring was injured the second year I had him, and I was heartbroken. “Wally” was the only horse I had at that level and had it not been for him I probably wouldn't have carried on eventing.

Noble Springbok
“He set me up for life”

MY pony of a lifetime. He had a single-line advert in