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Tucked away in the nether regions of suburban Newbury’s twisting, leafy lanes that suddenly turn into surprisingly pretty and spacious countryside is Jamaican Eventer Samantha Albert’s yard. Hiding behind a Garden Centre is a collection of stables that have been continually expanding and upgraded, multiple paddocks, an indoor arena, lanes for hacking and just a few minutes drive away is the main road that takes you to the A34 and then the M4 which practically unlocks the whole of England. Rather like her facility, Samantha’s not what you’d expect either, she’s an absolutely charming mix of Carribean cool, top class athlete and successful businesswoman but with a sweet, soft maternal side too. Having lived in England most of her life, “When I was fourteen I came over to England and spent the summer here and loved it, and begged my dad that when I finished school could I come here and ride,” the slight lilt to her accent belies her roots.
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Samantha at the Beijing Olympics 2008 (picture kindly supplied by Samantha and used with permission)
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Samantha has ridden for Jamaica all her life despite having several options – her mother still lives there although her father lives in Canada, and her ex-husband is Swedish eventer Dag Albert, and Samantha herself has been based in England for some 20 years now. Although Samantha says she misses Jamaica, especially during these less than warm, non-sunny British summers, she returns often with her two sons, and hopes to be able to give back to the Jamaican eventing scene there again, “My dream is to build up the riding a bit more in Jamaica because when we grew up, everybody rode; all of my friends rode and we used to have such a fantastic time and it slowly died down. Whenever I go out there now I teach and I do clinics, and there’s always a huge turnout, but the problem is they don’t have anyone producing the horses. I am trying to organise getting horses off the track and producing them as riding horses, polo ponies, trekking horses, anything, which is what I used to do when I was a young teenager there. I’d like to try and get that going again in Jamaica so that there’s something for the children to get on. It needs some other blood in there to get it going again, and I would love to get it going.” Interestingly, there are no ponies in Jamaica, just horses, and although there is only one cross country schooling course, there is a fairly healthy combined training scene, including the FEI Samsung League.
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Samantha on her London Olympics hopeful horse, Carraig Dubh aka Danny
(Picture kindly supplied by Samantha and used with her permission)
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Even though the weather has now improved considerably, the climate here isn’t what compatriot Usain Bolt thrives on, and Samantha laughs that her fellow Jamaican athletes will have to acclimatise when they get here in a classic case of the Cool Runnings!
“When they arrive they’ll be wrapped up in their winter woollies because this is freezing for them; even though it’s not that bad, it is really cold for them because they’ve been running at home and it’s a big difference.”
The horse that Samantha rode in the Beijing Games four years ago, Before I Do It, was a mare bred by her ex-mother in law, broken and brought on by Samantha and then sold during her divorce. Samantha had the opportunity to buy her back and took her all the way to the Olympics, and is now looking forward to starting one of her offspring. This time around though, she’ll be riding a leased horse at London, taking on a horse that Tina Cook brought up to Advanced level, and something she said at first she found quite daunting, “I’ve had him since the end of November and it’s been a bit of a steep learning curve; I’ve never ridden anyone else’s Advanced horse, I’ve only ever produced my own so it’s a bit of a shock! My first run was Ballindenisk Three Star which was our qualifier, I didn’t have a prep run, I could only cross country school once because it was so wet, so it was literally throwing us in at the deep end!” Since then the weather has continued to play havoc with Samantha’s campaign, so Carraig Dubh aka Danny and her will go to London on the back of Ballindenisk, two Open Intermediates, and Houghton and Belton CIC***s.
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Samantha and Danny (Picture kindly supplied by Samantha and used with permission)
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On arrival in the UK, her father paid for three years of coaching for Samantha, as well as her first serious horse, A Step Ahead, after which time Samantha was well and truly hooked, and since then she has bought and sold, trained and taught and made her own living with horses, “Sarah Wardell and I started a yard together in Cheshire and we did everything – we did hunters in the winter, we bought horses, we broke them, we brought them on, we sold them, we did a lot of teaching. That’s how I started my business which is pretty much still buying and selling and doing a lot of teaching.”
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On the left, Dan, Samantha’s Olympic hope, and on the right, Squirt
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Samantha had been aiming Squirt at the London Games but an injury sidelined him, and despite his prodigious talent, she told me it has just cemented her love for the thoroughbreds, “I’ve always had thoroughbreds, and then with the sport slightly changing I went to warmbloods. Squirt is an amazing horse, but if he has a pinprick on him it’s a disaster – he lies down and puts his leg up in the air! The thoroughbreds are so much tougher, they just grit their teeth and carry on, that’s one part of it, and they just seem to have a much tougher way of going, and I think the sport suits a thoroughbred just as much as a warmblood now, I don’t think there’s much in it really.”
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Just in case you were worried Squirt was getting bored being stuck in his stall whilst recuperating….!
****************http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YAWge-BUy8*****************
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Samantha rode Dex, aka Culture Couture at the Test Event last summer, another horse that she bought, brought on and has since sold. We talked a little bit about the difference between riding at these Games in the middle of London, and riding at the Olympics in Hong Kong and past Championships, “It’s nice in that we’re all in one spot, we don’t have to truck to the cross country, that’s the biggest bonus. The cross country course in Hong Kong was fantastic, the facilities were great, nobody could knock them. The site at Greenwich is very, very small. Not only the cross country – everyone is talking about the cross country being very tight and twisty and turny, but the whole site is tight. There’s nowhere to hack them, I think we have one canter strip where we can canter up to where the start of cross country is, but the horses are very fit, sometimes on edge and there are times you just want to take them for a stroll around the park, like at Badminton for example, but you can’t do that there, there just isn’t the space. I don’t know how Danny will react to that, he is quite a high-strung horse but I think once he gets in there it will be fine. Again, in Hong Kong we went in eight or nine days prior, and here we’re going in three days before we start so we’ll probably give them the last gallop before we go in so there won’t be that much to do.” Samantha’s parents, sisters, and sons will be there in London to cheer her on, as will many Jamaican fans at home and plenty of others all over the world, my son and I included.
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Samantha riding Dex/Culture Couture at the London Test Event last summer.
(Picture kindly supplied by Samantha and used with permission)
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Having changed her mind to retire after Beijing she is determined to do so after these Olympics, even with the uber talented Squirt waiting in the wings, and of course Before I Do It’s youngster amongst much else to tempt her back, “After London I’m going to take a back seat. I’ve had an amazing life doing it and I’ve met so many fantastic people, but it’s got to the point now where there are other things that I’d like to do. It’s just so time consuming and every penny I earn goes into the horses. I’ve got two boys who want to do other things too, they’re both very sporty and while I do love that they ride and I don’t think that I would want them to choose it as a career.”
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Many, many thanks to Samantha for her time and generosity, and wishing the very best of luck; thank you for reading and if you still want to know more about Samantha you can listen to a full audio version of our interview on this week’s Eventing Radio Show online on Thursday 26th July. Go Samantha and Go Jamaican Eventing!
