David Harris is an Englishman living in Oklahoma who loves eventing, thoroughbreds and has dreams of riding at Rolex – we’re practically kindred spirits – and so it was a given that I should ring him up for a chat and share it with you!
David has been in the US for 23 years now; he originally settled in Ohio where his mother was the Director of the Equestrian Programme at Lake Erie College, although he wasn’t riding then, having swapped ponies for race-cars at the age of fourteen back home in England. However, as fate would have it, some sixteen years later, after watching his step-daughter compete at a local pony club novice event, he was persuaded to have a go around the cross country. He thought, “what the heck”, jumped on and around the course, then some training fences, then some prelim, and was well and truly bitten by the bug again.
Work prompted a move to Oklahoma where he bought “a thoroughbred that looked like he’d been starved to death, but he ended up being a really good horse for me, and he’s still going at the age of 22.”
David also bought a 68 acre farm in Oklahoma, “I’d always wanted to give my mum what my dad had never been able to give her, and that was a facility to teach out of. She’s a BHSI instructor, and we only had a little 5 acre place in England. She did the best she could with 5 acres, but once we had the land in Oklahoma I built a full cross-country course, dressage and show-jumping arenas and she came down here and taught here.”
After cutting his teeth on hunter trials and schooling shows, David decided to run affiliated events at his Woodlands Equestrian Center; after a couple of years at training level he soon upgraded it to prelim and then intermediate, building the cross country courses himself with help from Red Doyle who ran the event with Ana Schravesande.
In 2000, a devastating wildfire would have stopped many men in their tracks but Eventers are made of tough stuff, as we know,
“We got burnt to the ground by the wildfire – it burned 150 jumps and left us with five. Everyone said we’d never rebuild in time to run a show the next year, but I’m one of those people that you if you tell me No, I”ll prove you wrong. Red, John and I re-built the whole course and ran about 120 horses almost exactly a year to the day after we got burnt down.”
Oklahoma may not be the mecca of US eventing that the East Coast is, but it has it’s own advantages; specifically, David tells me he that he can train there all year round; the weather in the winter might be bad enough to warrant not riding for maybe a week in January, “in Oklahoma if you blink an eye the weather can change 70 degrees”.
David explains that his property is on sandy soil which is perfect for conditioning, and that in the lead-up to his three days he did a lot of his fitness work in the dark after a day at work,
“We’ve got a long hill at the back of our property and we’ll do a lot of work up there. I find it really serene. The horse has really got to trust you, and in turn you’ve got to trust your horse.”
David’s wife, Laura, grew up riding hunter/jumpers but fate intervened again, and it was when she was taking dressage lessons with David’s mother, and she and David rode together a few times that “love blossomed”, although their first date was in hospital!
“I got kicked by a big Holsteiner who split my tibia, so she darted me off to hospital. At the time I was qualified for the Adult Team Championships in Kentucky and I’d always wanted to ride there, and I’d never let anybody else ride my horse. Her horse had gone lame so I told her to take mine, Lord Jim, and I drove them there with my cast on; she ended up 7th individually and the team came 3rd. Lord Jim is still going too, at the grand old age of 21; every time Jim Wofford sees him he can’t believe how old he is, he thinks he behaves like a 2 year old!”
As a youngster, Lord Jim had a shaky start to his career,
“He ran 27 races, and had a chip in his knee at 6 years old. They took him to the auction and he was going to the slaughter house but a lady traded two mules for him, and had the chip taken out. While he was recovering though, he rolled on a glass bottle which went straight through his withers and made him as stiff as a board. I bought him and spent a whole summer working on his flexion and got him supple, and he’s the horse that I now measure all the other horses by, because that horse has always given 150%, no matter what. There’s no money in the world that would ever buy that horse.”
David riding Country in a clinic last October
Although I hope David won’t mind my saying he’s getting on in years,(he’s about to turn 55) he still has lofty ambitions,
“My goal is to ride at Rolex; it may be a far-fetched goal but it’s one that still drives me, and somehow, some way I’m going to give it everything I’ve got to get there. I think I’ve got two horses that could take me there, and we’ll see…I’m a very positive person, that’s why I keep battling on towards my Rolex goal. I’m sure that Jim Wofford and Phillip Dutton think that I’m totally nuts and that I’ve got no chance, but if you don’t strive for something you’re never going to keep going; I’ve got to keep pushing my busted up body to satisfy my adrenalin need!”
And he certainly has a good eye for a horse – he’s responsible for finding Truluck as a 3 year old, (“his mind was always superb, he was fantastic, he just always wanted to please”) and more recently Young Man, both owned in part by Annie Jones and ridden by Philip Dutton. Truluck famously finished fourth at Burghley, watched proudly by many including David’s mother, and Young Man is at the beginning of his career but has been racking up consistent intermediate and two star placings all year.
Young Man raced under the name Rock Hauler – he was owned by the owner of a trucking company, and Annie bought him sight unseen, which she NEVER does (!) on Phillip’s recommendation after he saw the video David had sent him, and of course on the back of the goodwill shored up by Truluck.
David currently has his hopes set on an 8 year old OTTB called Country Schooling that he found, like most of his other horses, via the Remington Park track farrier Hack Neff and his wife Pam who gallops at the track,
“His first race was pretty much a disaster because the gate handler left one of the lead shanks on him so he flew out of the gates with this leather strap slapping him on the butt, flew to the front and the poor jockey had a job to make the first turn. He petered out about halfway round, but that really blew his mind to racing; he ran a couple of times after that and then they brought him out here for me to try, and I liked him instantaneously.”
Hack Neff with another OTTB for David to try (I say thumbs up!)
From such humble beginnings Country is now competing at the prelim level and schooling intermediate; David reckons he definitely has the movement for dressage and the athleticism to take him all the way to four star,
“He’s a really talented athlete. He’s got a few little quirks; when I’m schooling him here at home he’ll try and buck me off but when we go to a competition he puts on his show clothes and he is all business.”
Speaking of which, David and Laura have four eventers between them, board some horses at their barn, and sell a few every now and then too; I asked David what he looks for in a horse,
“It’s got to have a great mind, pretty good confirmation and be athletic. I don’t have time to spend with something that’s not forward thinking so I’m very particular about what I buy, and we don’t sell very many.”
Young Man at The Fork this spring
I wonder if it’s been hard for David to reconcile his own ambitions with watching Truluck do so well, and now Young Man, and he tells me not at all, he enjoys it and couldn’t be more proud. Then I ask if him what he would do if on the brink of doing Rolex he was offered an enormous amount of money for his horse?
“I think I would have a hard time selling Country, although there’s been a couple of times when he’s pummeled me into the ground, and he broke my nose recently so I thought maybe I should sell him! He’s such a character though, and he and I have a lot in common – we’re both a little bit crazy!”
I presume it’s lack of time that prevents him from turning more horses around but the real reason may be more sentimental,
“I get really attached to them. I can say I shed a tear every time I put one on the van. That’s the bit I find difficult because every one of them means something to me. If I could afford to I would just fill the place up with ex-racehorses, and train them and give them a good home. I love starting the young ones, it probably gives me more pleasure than taking them on even further.”
Always ex-racehorses?
“I think the thoroughbreds are a lot more generous, they’ve got a bigger heart, they’re smart, forward-thinking and great athletes, and I like to give them a second chance in life.”
David and Laura no longer have the time to run the event at Woodlands as they manage the barn themselves, ride their horses, and both have full-time jobs. They do host clinics however, and Jim Wofford is a popular regular, “To me, he’s the world’s best, and he tells it like it is, and my thinking is if you can’t take it you shouldn’t be riding!”
Laura, who started Truluck, has a nice four year old, and is aiming to do a Training 3 Day. After some tough goes, and a knee replacement last year, she overhears my question to David about selling his horse before Rolex, and laughingly interjects without hesitation that hers would be gone!
David’s mother has since moved back to England, and sadly severe lupus makes it hard for her to travel, although David hopes that if he does make it to Rolex in her lifetime, she might be able to make the trip to Kentucky to watch,
“With mother and son relationships sometimes it’s pretty hard. She is a fantastic teacher and Laura’s probably learnt more from her than I did because I would tend to get a little temperamental. She’d always expect 100%, and she always thought that I knew more than I knew and I’d get frustrated, but there were certain horses that worked well and I learnt a lot from her. I certainly learnt a lot when I was a kid, but I wish she hadn’t moved back to England because now is the time I really need her.”
David with Country and his mum
A big thank you to David for his time, and to Laura for keeping the Harris hounds quiet ( “3 corgis, 2 Jack Russells and an ancient rat terrier”) and I look forward to meeting them in Kentucky either for Rolex or the Training Three Day, whichever comes first. David sent me masses of gorgeous pictures for this article, sadly many of which I couldn’t share with you for copyright reasons, including one of him and his wife that he’d especially hoped I’d use,
“ One I hoped you used was the one of Laura and I riding away from the finish line showing our consecutive numbers. Love is Eventing together and riding off into the sunset after both completing the course successfully.”
Also many thanks to Alex Brown for making the introduction, and to you for reading. Go for your goals and Go Eventing!
