Classic Eventing Nation

I’m 33 years old – old enough, now, that every time I need to make a strong declaration that starts with my age, I have to turn to my partner and ask, ‘am I still 32 or have I had a birthday?’, so that’s something to look forward to, kids.

Anyway, what was I saying? Ah, yes, this: that I am 33 years old, or maybe 32, I can’t remember, and regardless, my Christmas list looks exactly the same as it did when I was 4, or when I was 15, or when I was 26. It consists solely of a four or five-year-old, 16.1 to 16.2hh compact, sporty jumping machine, ideally a steely dapple grey but only if it’ll never, ever fade to an unwashed white; bred with the best of blood down one side of its pedigree and all the nice things that smarten that blood up down the other. It has to be talented enough to go to the upper levels and also have enough of a sense of humour that it can cope with me, a person who wouldn’t know a stride if it danced naked on my nose. It has to be sweet and silly and fun to hang out with. It has to, ideally, come with a gift certificate for livery, shoeing, hay, feed, and entry fees, because we’re in a cost of living crisis, and I write about horses for a living, which is about as volatile an income as you can imagine. 

But daddy, I LOVE HIM.

I came very close to finding this horse two years ago at the Goresbridge Go For Gold Sale.

Okay, so he wasn’t grey – instead, he was a lanky chestnut covered in chrome, as you Yanks say, which is so not my type usually, and he was an unbacked three year old, but from the moment I saw him in the catalogue, I knew I had to take a closer look. I ended up in his stable being gently snogged by his sweet, soft elephant trunk of his nose, and I knew that I’d met my one true love.

Unfortunately, he didn’t come with those gift certificates, I wasn’t there to shop, and he was ultimately one of the top-selling lots of the night, and is now living his very best life with his purchaser – one Andrew Hoy. I try not to resent him, but really, Andrew, how does it feel to live my dream? 

I am never going to emotionally recover from this horse.

There were, of course, plenty of other horses I could so easily have fallen in love with at that edition of the auction, and it was a hard enough task to pick my favourites for that year’s edition of my G4G selection guide.

But this year? Good lord, this year has been nearly impossible. I’ve had to totally overhaul my process, I’ve had to hold myself back from expanding beyond ten, I’ve had to introduce an ‘honourable mentions’ section just to appease myself while digging through the 90 entries, which I’ll quite confidently say are the sales’ best yet.

This year, we’re going to do it like this: I’ll share with you my four favourite ridden horses (there’s loads of these this year, and they’re delightful!) and then my six favourite unbacked horses, and then, just humour me here, we’ll move into the honourable mentions and I’ll try, at some point, to hit publish and walk away from this thing without moving onto my Instagram stories to be like, ‘HEY, HI, THIS ONE IS ALSO NICE, AND I NEED THE RECORD TO STATE THAT I SPOTTED IT BEFORE, LIKE, MICHAEL JUNG’. I’m a nice, normal person to take horse-purchasing recommendations from, don’t worry. 

So how does this whole catalogue-thinning thing work, anyway? Well, with 90 entries, you have to be fairly picky from the offset. I begin in the catalogue proper, rather than on the individual online entries, so I can look at conformation first and screenshot the horses I really like the look of.

Studying conformation should always be done with a reasonably open mind – there are, of course, many top-level talents who are just a bit wonky, and it would be a real shame to miss out on a star of the future because they’re slightly more upright in the pastern than you really like to see. But I’ve got places to be (bed) and things to do (Netflix), and so I lead with pickiness. I like to see a real leg in each corner, a balance to the body, a good shoulder, a robust set of hind-end angles. I’ve had a lot of long Thoroughbreds so I gravitate towards well-set-on, reasonably compact necks and short, strong backs. 

Once I’ve got the field down to about 40 or so picks, I start watching videos. I skip the slow-mo bits, which look nice, but frankly, as a part-time videographer I know you can make anything look flashy if you slow it down by 40%. So that’s where I can save some time – instead, I move ahead to watching the horse walk and trot in hand, and then loose-jumping or working under saddle.

I primarily want to see balance and ease: does the horse happily pop over fences without looking as though he, or she, is having to try too hard, or cracking his back and snapping his knees to his eyeballs? I want him to look green enough, as though it’s all pretty new to him, and I want it to look like quite good fun, too. Happy ears, happy eyes: yay! Green wobbliness: fine! A tendency to plunge on landing, or pin his ears, or a really wildly impressive freejump that looks like it’s been worked on in training? That’s all stuff that can be totally fine, but for me, it’s when I take a horse off the list. 

Do I look at the handy X-rays tab to narrow them down further? Not for these purposes, no – you can pass that along to the professional of your choosing if you decide you’d like to pursue one of my picks. I’m here for a good time, guys, not a long time, and frankly, I do not have a veterinary degree and my reasonably amount of knowledge and relatively fragile ego simply do not want to pair up to deal with a situation in which I write something like “hey, so, there’s some kind of shadowy bit at the top of this X-ray that may make you want to caveat emptor this whole shebang” and one of you lot or, say, Spike the Vet, writing in the comments “hey, so, that’s like, the horse’s whole stifle joint, you dirty great hack.” Can’t cope. Won’t cope. I’ll go so far as to maybe not add a horse to the list if it’s actively missing a limb but beyond that, I’ll leave the true under-the-bonnet inspection to literally anybody with more initials after their name than me. 

One more thing that’ll get the big red X from me? Sorry, but it’s Master Imp too close to the fore in the pedigree. There are some unbelievable Master Imps out there – he’s a stallion that’s sent many of his progeny to the top of the sport. I’ve never met a Master Imp that couldn’t jump the moon. I know so many people who adore them – including my former boss, one Phyllis Dawson, a woman who really knows a thing or two about good Irish horses. This is not a Master Imp putdown. But for me, they remind me way too much of several of my exes, and that’s just not something I want to intentionally put into my yard, so you Master Imp lovers can rest easily knowing I’m not sharing the lot you love the most in this article. You can go undercover; I’ve got the ick. 

Shall we get on with the selections, then? 

THE RIDDEN HORSES 

Lot 1: Grantstown Dun and Dusted

Six-year-old, 16hh gelding (Mermus R x Lisrua Misty, by Coral Misty’s Bobby)

It’s very boring of me to pick lot one, isn’t it, because the first lot in the catalogue is the one everyone will see, because they won’t have catalogue fatigue yet. So sorry about that — but let me spice things up for you by immediately contradicting one of my own tried-and-true methods. My first thought about this little lad (not a pony, at 16hh, but let’s be real, a pony) is that I’m not, like, obsessed with the angles of his hind pasterns into his hooves from his conformation photo. But I’m also aware that sometimes, those angles can be a bit skewed in photos by the way a horse is standing, and so I put him firmly into my ‘Maybe’ pile, mostly because I love a bit of smart Connie-cross breeding. When I return to have a look at his video, he wins me over.

I wish kids eventing on ponies was as common a sight in the US as it is in the UK, something Justine Dutton-Barnard down in Ocala is certainly working hard to fix. This isn’t an advertorial piece for Justine, but I would like her to snap this fella up, because he looks very like her type of smart coloured, athletic, rideable, cool dude of a Connie-cross, and I could see him giving some plucky teenager the best of times while also having enough scope and power to potentially step up the levels. He’s got a big step, an active hind end, he’s neat, bold, and athletic, and while he has all the plus-points of a pony, at 16hh, he’ll take up enough leg for most of us to enjoy the ride on him. It doesn’t need to be a plucky teenager! It can be a plucky adult who wants to have some real fun with this weird, expensive, maddening hobby. At nearly 5’8 from the time I was eleven, I’ve never really been able to be a Connemara person myself, but I could quite happily take the ride on this guy and fulfil all those pony notions I’ve had such a chip on my shoulder about. I love the full-Connemara damline crossed with Mermus R, who’s a stallion I really like for eventing.

I might not have been wild about the upright pasterns, but the great thing about this auction is you can speak in depth to the impartial vet, and your own vet can also have an open line of dialogue. This means you can absolutely keep an eye out for things you’re not sure about, and also not lose out on your horse of a lifetime because of something that ultimately won’t be an issue. 

Lot 8: Industrial Action

Five-year-old, 16.1hh gelding (Tyson x CBI Ice Queen, by Baltic VDL)

How fun, to have a horse on the yard named after my favourite reason for my train to London to have been cancelled! Unlike Britain’s rail strikes, though, this young horse is going places. He’s a real plain brown wrapper, but that’s actually one of the things I like about him: he looks quite timeless, if that’s a thing that makes any sense at all to say about a horse, and there’s a real classic handsomeness about him. But really, what gets me about this chap is how he’s adapted to everything he’s seen so far. He’s already gone out and about and done (and won!) some young horse classes under Daisy Trayford — international eventer and former Florida resident in her own right. He’s easily jumping around EI100 (Training level) right now, well, well within his abilities.

I really enjoyed watching one of his lot videos showing him in one of these young horse classes at Millstreet, which he won. He’s not being pushed to jump in a more mature way than he needs to right now, so he’s still occasionally a bit green over a fence, jumping higher than he needs to because he’s not figured out how to put his body in totally the right place yet. This, to me, is very heartening — if you’re going to take on a young horse who’s been started, it’s much nicer to take one on who hasn’t been pushed and prodded and ‘perfected’, but rather, been sympathetically ticked along and left to find his own balance.

And boy, does he have that. Indy, as I’m going to call him now, earned his place on this list when he had to open up his canter stride while moving from the flat sand to an uphill bit of turf, and then transition down to trot on the downhill. He’s a bouncy ball of a horse and it was so easy for him to maintain that forward motion, that balance, and that eager expression that I think he’ll take to eventing like a duck to water. I really like this horse for a lot of buyers — a keen, well-supported amateur in a system, or a pro or aspiring pro who wants to produce something really smart to either sell on in a few years for a big profit, or try to take all the way.

Lot 5: Obailey

Five-year-old gelding, 16.3hh (Interest x Bailey, by Montreal)

Every time I do one of these things, there’s at least one horse I pick out as the Novice (US Prelim) packer/Junior or Young Rider horse who you’ll wish you had five of in your yard so you could have THAT payday five times over. I’ve considered it for a while and I think Obailey could be that horse here. I don’t want to necessarily see him immediately bought for a less experienced rider – he’s still pretty baby-horse fragile in the contact and he occasionally twists his front end over a fence rather than lifting it, so I want a soft and sympathetic pro to put a year of basics and fun into him first and let him be baby, before he steps into a proper career. But generally, the vibe I get here is of a sweet soul who really wants to please and who is naturally brave and careful. It helps that he’s also pretty — this is generally the last thing you should consider when you’re shopping, but if you’re a pro and thinking about commercial viability in the future, it’s also kind of important. A rosy grey with four socks and a delicate, cute head is not a bad thing to have about the place. 

I showed this lot to my non-horsey partner and he started singing ‘Obailey, Bailey, how was I supposed to know?’ so I guess if you’re going to buy this one and TikTok the story of his production, that’s your first audio choice sorted. You can PayPal, Venmo, or Revolut me a tip if you’d like.

Lot 12: MBF Caesar Rocket

Four-year-old 16.2hh gelding (Tullabeg Fusion x Breemount Rocket, by Romabo)

Many first-time auction buyers spend a long time deciding whether or not they want to find their next horse this way, and I can completely understand why. It can feel, in a lot of ways, quite uncertain, or perhaps, quite pressured – there’s a timeframe on making your choices, after all, and while you can see your horses, or try them if they’re backed, in a variety of ways on site, you can’t, say, take them out and about or see how they react to a brand new place, or anything like that. And so Lot 12 gets a place on this list almost wholly because of one little detail that makes me think of him as a sure thing – or as close as you can get to one, anyway. He’s a lovely type, with nice conformation, a smart, athletic jump, and solid breeding – but that’s not the clincher. The clincher is that, at the age of four, he’s already happily being hacked out by a child whose little stirrup irons barely make it off the flap of the saddle. You won’t see this in his primary lot video, but keep scrolling through the content available for him, and you’ll find it: a good two minutes of footage of him standing to be mounted in the barn aisle, while two of his friends try to remove one another’s ears right next to him, and then merrily mooching around the farm, through the fields, into the cross-country field, and down the road, including a savvy little clip of him waiting as a car drives by.

I always like the horses Brian Flynn and Meabh Bolger of MBF Sporthorses bring forward, and this is one of the reasons: these horses see a lot, in the right sort of way, and come out of it with a smile on their faces and a good foundation to build upon. Someone is going to love this horse very, very much and find him very quickly becoming a part of the family. (An early honourable mention here to Lot 22, MBF’s other ridden entry, who is also shown being ridden by the yard’s littlest jockey and is also a very, very cool option in a slightly smaller outline!)

THE UNBACKED HORSES 

Lot 90: MBF Ivy Coast

Three-year-old 16.1hh gelding (Rock ‘N Roll Ter Putte x Lislan Cinsey, by Cinsey)

Gosh, this is just a really nice-looking stamp of a horse, isn’t it? He comes prepackaged with plenty of hindend action, an easy, balanced jump, and a pretty blank slate in terms of training, because it’s obvious that he’s not been overproduced while free-jumping. Because he’s blessed with so much elasticity in his movement and jump, I think he’ll be a lot of horse to play with, and for that reason, I reckon he’s best suited to someone with experience producing so that they can get the best out of him and not shut down all that natural ability. I’ll be really interested to see where he ends up and what he does, because the world feels like his oyster.

Lot 69: Moment of Mischief

Three-year-old 16.1hh gelding (Sligo Candy Boy x Savanna Twist, by Olympic Lux)

I’m not saying I’d buy a horse just because it would give me an ongoing bit in which I could constantly refer to lot 69 and my Moment of Mischief, yada yada, etc etc, but I’m also not saying I wouldn’t do that, you know? In the case of this smart young gelding, though, you don’t need to commit to the bit to have an excellent set of reasons for committing to the bid. Immediately, I’m in love with his expression: it’s a pony face on a horse body, and these kind of bright-eyed pony faces often speak to a quick, clever brain (and, okay, sometimes a little pinch of sharpness). When he free-jumps, he shows off plenty of easy athleticism, but again, it’s that expression: he’s working out what he has to do as he does it, he’s adjusting his own balance, he’s looking for the next challenge, and he’s relishing the experience.

You can always improve a trot — though this chap has a lovely natural one — but you should buy, so they say, a good canter and a good walk. The canter you’ll be buying here is very promising, and about as uphill as I’ve seen in a three-year-old. There’s so much going for this three-year-old, and I hope I see him having just as much fun at the upper levels in a few years’ time — not least because it would be lovely to bring names like this back into fashion. How very Equestriad: 2001, indeed.

Lot 84: Monbeg Chacco

Three-year-old 16.1hh gelding (HHS Cornet x Legaland Blue Angie, by Chacco Blue)

I’ve had a lot of horses shaped like sausage dogs, so perhaps I’m particularly vulnerable to the charms of a really compact, sporty model. This one’s just that – 16.1 hands of fun, with a back so short that you might have to cope with cramming your buttcheeks into a 16.5 inch seat for the rest of time, but it’ll be worth it, because what you get in return is a tonne of revs. I could see this one heading to Le Lion in a couple of years once he’s learned how to work some elasticity into that short little back of his, because he has bags of scope and is easy with it, too. He’s also nicely bred – his full sister, who’s a year older, is currently in the US sunning it up at the West Coast base of James Alliston. 

This is a horse who’s pretty enough to pose on a postage stamp, and probably tidy enough to fit on it, too, with bags of presence and an innate confidence in himself that I really like.

Lot 44: Monbeg Tiara

Three-year-old 16.1hh mare (Emerald Van’t Ruytershof x Hacondia M2S, by Ulysses)

I got in trouble a lot as a kid for day-dreaming, and frankly, none of the punishments meted out against me have stopped me from being an adult of 32 or 33, depending upon when you ask me, who also daydreams. Hell, I became a writer. I live in an almost nonstop state of dissociation.

One of the worlds my brain inhabits is basically an ongoing grown-up pony novel, starting an alternate-reality version of me in which I didn’t give up working full-time with horses, and I’m not a chronic pansy, and I somehow suddenly like rain enough for riding all day to feel worthwhile. In this alternate reality/glaring symptom of deeply-entrenched mental illness, I make a comfortable living to support myself and my horses by snapping up youngstock that has hunter-jumper potential, giving said youngstock life experience around a couple of small events, and then specialising its training and competitions to formally produce it for the hunters, or hunter derbies, or equitation, and sell into that big-money market. By the time the cheque changes hands, it’ll be a really well-rounded, happy athlete who’s not surprised by much and can look after itself, and some billionaire’s daughter will have a lovely time with it.

The point of all this? This is the horse at the top of my bid list for that scheme. She’s really nicely put together, with a pleasing solidity to her that doesn’t match my ideal event horse type (a pony on steroids, basically, is what I want there) but is perfect for how I’d want to produce her. She’s got a unique and interesting colouring that makes her more commercial, too. For the hunter-jumper market, she ticks a lot of boxes in her movement and her jump: she’s tidy and workmanlike but mostly, she’s smooth. There’s a bascule that could be developed for that real hunter-y jump, but she’s also conservative enough at the moment that she could be a really rideable equitation horse that won’t jump her rider out of the saddle. She is, perhaps, smaller than is en vogue in that market, but she has time to grow, and frankly, I’d rather see some of these tiny teenagers on horses that actually take up their leg, so perhaps in my alternate reality, we can change some trends together.

Lot 65: Hans Utopia

Three-year-old 16.1hh gelding (Q’Chacco Blue Van Essene x Gemma-Utopia, by Zirocco Blue VDL)

Other than horses, my great love is travelling, and this horse first caught my attention purely because he reminds me of the sort of stupid adventures I always end up on. Hans Utopia sounds like a Bavarian gay bar in which everyone’s in lederhosen, and this doe-eyed little innocent has somehow also lost a sock, which is actually the number one disaster that ails me on every single day of my travelling life. Why did I neatly pair and pack enough socks for every day of my trip, plus three extra pairs for emergencies, only to make it halfway through the trip and discover that there is just one solitary clean sock left, and I don’t even know where the dirty ones are? Why does this happen to me every time? Hans Utopia knows my pain. Hans Utopia has a stein of beer for me.

Hans Utopia (is this not also a character in Zoolander?) isn’t just a pretty face and a terrific name, though. This is a really nicely-started young horse, who’s met all sorts of cross-country obstacles on the lunge, and I enjoyed watching him do so on one of the videos available in his lot listing. It’s not just that he jumps them bravely and with plenty of scope, although that much is true and nice too — it’s that he keeps his head, doesn’t run off on landing, and remains balanced and focused, so it’s really obvious that he’s not been overfaced or scared. What I also like is that when he jumps through the sunken road and finds himself a touch deep, he self-corrects on his next pass through. That’s indicative of the kind of sensible, confident self-preservation that you really, really want to buy in an event prospect.

Lot 50: MBF Lucky Find

Three-year-old 16.1hh gelding (Lucky Luck x TRSH Kiss Me Kate, by Ars Vivendi)

This is a serious bit of kit, as my pal Ben Way would say, and actually, Ben, if you’re reading this, maybe put a bid in. This is a pro’s purchase all day long, because this chap has so much natural ability and scope that I think he could possibly frighten himself if someone inexperienced took him on. His hindend activity over a fence is colossal, and he’s got scope for days, and with someone on his back who’ll allow him to learn his own way and will hold his hand as he does so, I think he’s going to be unbelievable. He’s a bit of a cheat for me to put in the unbacked section, mind you — he’s actually lightly backed and riding away around the farm, but that means the difficult bit is done and you can get on with laying your own foundations on him. If we get the go-ahead for Brisbane 2032, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see this guy there, if he’s well-sold at Goresbridge.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Lot 80: MBF Touch Of Class, a three-year-old by Call Me Number One, who’s had a really lovely bit of exposure to the world already — like all of MBF’s youngsters, he’s been out hacking on the long-rein and has actually been gently backed and ridden around the farm. He is, technically, one of my actual picks, but I felt I’d rather overegged this pudding with MBF picks, so I’m sticking him here as a concession. He’s that grey horse of my dreams, really, and a serious jumper, so go snap him up if you want something in between an unbacked baby and a youngster who’s out competing.

Lot Number 9: Beegee Cruise is the perfect buy for the person who loves a bit of a claim to fame — because this five-year-old mare has plenty of them. Her dam is a full sister to Andrew Nicholson’s Mr Cruise Control, winner of Luhmühlen CCI5*, and her sire is Valent, who’s also responsible for this year’s Kentucky champion, Oliver Townend’s Cooley Rosalent; Jewelent, who was produced to CCI4*-L by Clare Abbott and is now with Phillip Dutton; and Govalent, a rising star for Sweden, who stepped up to CCI4*-L in October under Sofia Sjoborg. The next big name in stallions, basically, and this is a big, bold gal to help that name along.

Lot 11: Monbeg Dunard Blue. You remember my hunter resale fantasy from earlier? If that’s your sort of thing, too, you absolutely must check this chap out. He’s four and already jumping well under saddle, and if this isn’t one of the smartest hunter derby prospects you’ve ever seen, I’ll eat my own riding hat. I feel so confident in this pick that I’ll happily put that forfeit forward, even though my riding hat is revolting, not least because I kept a bag of horse treats in it and the mice got to it, and so there’s a real poo situation going on in the lining right now.

Lot 81: Borris Mr Coole. You know in the second Bridget Jones movie, when Bridget’s like, “she has legs up to HERE! My legs only go up to here.” She wasn’t actually talking about odd jellyfish lady, she was talking about the let’s be honest, slightly unfortunately named Borris Mr Coole, who’s a ludicrously good-looking baby horse. Loose-schooling, he reminds me of a Labrador with ADHD in the nicest possible way: there’s a lot of world out there for him to see, and he really, really wants to see it. I think he’ll be a yard favourite and make everyone laugh. 

To check out the 2024 Goresbridge Go For Gold catalogue in full, head over here — you’ll find photos, videos, X-rays, and further information for every lot. The Go For Gold auction will take place from November 11-13, with viewings at the Barnadown facility and the auction itself at the Amber Springs Hotel in Co. Wexford, Ireland. Viewing days, and the auction itself, will be live-streamed for remote bidders. For all the info on how to register, discounted hotel rates, and more, head over to Goresbridge’s website — and if you buy one of my picks, make sure to let us know! We love a sales success story here at EN.