Jack Mantel (rider edition) and Jack Daniels (horse edition). Photo by Cealy Tetley.
Why bother with three names when you can keep it simple and share one? Jack Daniels (horse) and Jack Mantel (rider) made their Badminton and five-star debut this afternoon, watched nervously by Jack Thomas-Watson (co-owner, along with Pauline Strawson whose name rather ruins the chain of Jacks, but we must acknowledge her important contribution nonetheless!). Their dressage score of 41.2 left them 37th of today’s 40 starters, but, as Jack Thomas-Watson jokes afterwards, “He can still win on that score!”
“Big Jack” (Thomas-Watson, 35) and “Little Jack” (Mantel, 30) are very popular figures on the equestrian scene in Northern England. Partners in life and business, they run a large and busy yard at Belsay in Northumberland, dealing, producing and competing event horses and producing and selling hunters — and any other type of nice horse that comes along.
Jack Thomas-Watson is a Geordie lad from nearby Newcastle who, as a child, starred in a 10-part television series, “The Stables”, made at Stepney Bank Stables — where Tom McEwen’s groom Adam Short also learnt his trade. Jack Mantel grew up in Cheshire and moved to Northumberland four years ago. Both are from non-horsey families.
Yes, really.
“I was animal-obsessed, and started riding when I was three or four,” says Jack Mantel. “I always had very green ponies — my first pony was a four-year-old and I was four, too. I fell off a lot; that’s how you learn.”
They found 11-year-old Jack Daniels, a Dutch-bred son of Indorado, in a field during lockdown. They weren’t actually vain enough to name him after themselves — he was already called that, but, Jack Thomas-Watson admits, “Commentators love it.”
He continues: “We went to a local lad, Adam Gillespie, who was giving up riding and had three horses for sale. We saw them and had the three of them. I hoped Jack Daniels would be my field master’s horse [Jack Thomas-Watson is a field master for their local pack of foxhounds, the Tynedale] but unfortunately I haven’t yet been allowed to ride him. Jack [Mantel] took a liking to him, and that was that.”
I express surprise that, as a horse dealer, Big Jack hasn’t been tempted to cash in on the big, good-looking bay, and he replies: “Not yet! No — having him has opened up so many doors to go to great events. We’ve had so much fun and met so many people; he’s a great horse and we’re very lucky to have him.”
Jack Daniels first caught the eye when winning the six-year-old championships of the short-lived NEXGEN series of young event horse classes during the Covid era. Last year he finished 18th at Bramham in the CCI4*-L, and then third in the CCI4*-L at Blair Castle, proving he had the jump, gallop and stamina to progress to the next level.
Little Jack says today: “We’re both still quite green at this level. He only did his first event as a seven-year-old, and this is four years later. But he stayed with me, he really tried – we made a few big mistakes, but overall I was really happy with him. I am actually feeling a little overwhelmed!
“Jack Daniels is quite a shy character at home. He kind of keeps himself to himself, but when he’s at an event he’s actually more relaxed — it’s a bit more like, ‘showtime!’ He’s a beautiful horse, so elegant, and when we first saw him, we thought, ‘He looks like a five-star horse.’
Big Jack sums it up in pithy fashion, saying: “First-time five-star — done, bosh! Now the big bit.”
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