Seamus jumping and X-country

Seamus was an excellent jumper. His only problem was that if he thought he was competing he would refuse to jump.

We once did a cross-country competition at Tweseldown. They started the horses at very short intervals so Seamus could see that there was a horse ahead of him ... that was all he needed to play.

On that day we overtook 5 of the horses in front of us !!! When we got to the finish line Seamus saw it was a competition and refused to cross the line. I got very distressed and after about 30 seconds trying to get him to go forwards between the posts I just threw my reigns down in hopelessness. At that point he finally decided he would cross the line.

Even after that we came 5th out of 137 !!! If he had just crossed the line we would have easily came 1st. Sadly our other attempts at competition did not go so well. Even 2'6" clear rounds were a problem.

When he wanted to he could REALLY jump.

I was hunting on Seamus one day when we approached a ditch that crossed the field we riding on.

As the ditch went from right to left it got wider and deeper. I was on the left side of the field, which was not a good start. Everyone was galloping towards the ditch with the huntsman out in front. You are not supposed to pass the huntsman. Anyway as everyone approached the ditch their horses refused to jump. Meanwhile my little "tank" was pulling strong. As everyone was to my right I pulled to the left to try and stop. Needless to say the ditch was getting wider and deeper.

Seamus took off rather early which is always a bad start. The ditch was about 2 meters deep and at least 3 meters wide. We only just made it, with his hind legs just catching the edge on the other side. My life went flashing through my eyes, as we took off. Jumping the ditch was not my first choice, but Seamus had other plans.

Needless to say we ended up the only pair on the other side of the ditch. Everyone else went looking for a way across.

But that is not the most amazing jump Seamus has ever done with me, the next one defies belief.

We were doing a charity cross country ride. They have 3 levels of jump for people to jump. As Seamus was in company, jumping was a game and he was quite happy to jump the biggest jumps, they were mostly 3'6". The course was just one big race to him.

He jumped all the way round the course like a star, it was great fun. Four jumps before the end a friend of mine thought it would be fun to overtake me. We were in an enclosed pen and there were quite a few other horses there. When Seamus saw her pass he pulled off and I could not hold him back, he hurdled 3 jumps in a row and overtook.

Only then did the problems start. The problem was the left turn exit out of the pen.

The Exit was blocked by people waiting to leave. A steward was standing in the corner and saw Seamus galloping towards him and did not know where to run. I thought Seamus was going to run through the barbed wire into trees. I was thinking ready chopped horse for dog food !! We heading straight towards the trees, I did not imagine what was going to happen next. Seamus took off and jumped the barbed wire corner in one go. The wire was the full 5-bar gate high. We also started the jump a long way from the corner making it a massive corner spread. I could not believe what was going on, I had been doing my best to stop Seamus, but still he jumped this horrendous jump.

The amazing thing was that he actually cleared the wire corner fence, 4 foot high and 10 foot wide I think. The bad luck was that the gate was almost, but not fully open. The gate was 12' long and Seamus caught his right knee on the end of the gate. We almost made but not quite. The spread he jumped must have been over 12' but I don't know how (we jumped further than the length of the gate because of the triangle).

As we came down on the gate I was devastated, I though that this was the end of my darling Seamus. We turned head over heals and I came off. Seamus proceeded to canter round the field on three legs. I was waiting for someone to tell me he had to be put down.

Anyway the good news is that he recovered to jump another day ... I wish I had not sold him.