‘He was a legend’: farewell to champion Welsh pony who met royals and starred on television

The owner of a Welsh pony who went to the World Championships, won national titles and excelled in para classes has paid tribute to her “legend” after his death aged 34.

Henrietta Woodward’s Arosfadeg Flying Cardi, who also featured on Blue Peter and met Prince Philip during his stellar career, had to be put down this week after a happy retirement.

“He was a very special pony,” Henrietta told H&H. “He had got to the stage where I thought he would go on for ever. He was a legend.”

“Dippy” excelled with international driver Liz Rowe, who bought him from travellers, retrained him and went on to be crowned national champion in tandem and single driving multiple times. They also went to the World Championships before the 13.3hh Welsh section C gelding was retired in 2009.

Henrietta bought him, for her daughter Octavia.

“He was a serious competition pony and the driving lot all said to me ‘He’ll never be any good for a disabled child’,” she said. “But my vet was the driving team vet, and he said ‘This is the pony Octavia needs’. And he was; he understood this was a different job and he was brilliant.”

Henrietta said their first competition was not without incident.

“We took him to a local driving competition and they asked us to do a show,” she said. “I’m an eventer by trade and I said to Octavia we’d have a canter, so we did and everyone was horrified,” she said. “Diddy said ‘Fine, let’s go’ but everyone said ‘Don’t ever do that again in a showing class!’”

Diddy and Octavia went on to great success in the para driving classes at Royal Windsor Horse Show, where he met Prince Philip. They also completed a 110-mile drive from Windsor to Wincanton in 2011 to raise money for the SMA Trust, which raises funds for research into spinal muscular atrophy.

“We started after his class at Windsor and over five days of driving and staying wherever we could, we finished with a good gallop up the straight at Wincanton racecourse and William Fox-Pitt met her.” Henrietta said. “It was lovely; he was 21 then and still super-fit.

“I retired him when he was about 25 and he was then a fantastic nanny to our youngsters, and had a lovely time,” said Henrietta, adding that she had to make the call on Monday (24 March) after Diddy had an accident in the field.

“It was awful but the kindest thing,” she said. “He looked at me and was saying ‘I want to go to sleep now’.

“He leaves a huge hole; he did so much and he was just lovely. A very special pony.”

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