‘It’s Jerry’s world and we all live in it’: 14.2hh Welsh cob wins 1.55m bareback challenge and qualifies for Hickstead pony final in two days

Meet Jerry, the 14.2hh Welsh section D who cleared 1.55m to win the Bury Farm bareback challenge – then picked up his Royal International Horse Show ticket the next day.

Madoghill Goronwy, to give him his full name, joint-won the single-fence challenge on Saturday (14 February) with his owner Maddie Maher on board, then won the winter JC/JD qualifier at Kelsall Hill with Ella Kay, less than 24 hours later.

“I can’t stop watching the video!” Maddie told H&H. “It was unreal.”

Maddie said she bought Jerry four years ago and tried to event him but he was too careful.

“So we decided to get a junior rider to showjump him, so Aimee Paxton took him on, two years ago,” she said. “For the past two years, he’s been to Horse of the Year Show in the newcomers and Foxhunter finals, which is amazing.

“Ella rode him last year and is riding him this year but I luckily had him back home for a free months and thought ‘Let’s do that bareback thing’. I’d always wanted to do it but don’t think I’ve been brave enough. But I trust Jerry with my whole life, so I thought ‘Why not?’”

Maddie and Jerry practised at home, clearing 1.40m.

“So to jump 1.55m in the class – I never thought that would happen!” she said.

“Last year they got to 1.45m but this time, there were five clear at that height. They said we could either do a five-way win or go again and I actually said I was happy to leave it there, take the five-way split and win, but one of the girls wanted to go again, so we went again.”

The single-fence challenge is run almost like a puissance but, as its name suggests, there is no smaller fence before the big one.

“He was jumping that well in the warm-up, I was thinking ‘Well, at least I can only mess up at that one fence, not have a smaller one down, clear the big one and be out’,” Maddie said.

“In the warm-up, I only jumped about 1.20m and everyone else was jumping top of the wings. And the girl I was with, Ellie, she said ‘Are you gonna jump bigger?’ But I said ‘No, that’s fine. He feels good, confident, and I’m happy to go in with that’.

“I went in and I knew there were two clears. I gave him a little stroke and said to him ‘Come on. Jez, we’ve got this’. I remember clearing it, and the whole crowd going wild.”

Lauren Burt also cleared the 1.55m with her own Hassini III, as did Krissie Yeoman with her own Joey, to split the win three ways.

The morning after the bareback challenge, Maddie had to travel Jerry to Kelsall Hill, arriving in the nick of time for the qualifier.

“When I got there, Ella came running out saying ‘I’ve got four to go’!” Maddie said. “She had to warm up, and go in – and they went triple clear in the fastest time by about five seconds.”

“He was just playing”

Ella told H&H Jerry found the qualifier easy, after his high-jumping exploits in the bareback challenge.

“He was just playing,” she said. “Because he’s not ours, I hadn’t ridden him since South View [31 January-1 February]. I forgot how to ride him, went in the ring and he was point and jump.”

Maddie added that Jerry, 15, has many fans, in person and online, and she even named her rider wear brand Jerryco Clothing after him.

“He’s a Welsh D so he’s very cheeky, he will get away with everything, but he can because he’s the best,” she said. “He loves the crowd, it lights him up, and he loves to show off; he’s a diva and he’s very dramatic about life. We always say it’s Jerry’s world and we live in it.”

The Bury Farm bareback speed class challenge went to Rebecca Hales with Karen Jones’s LNG Huntingfield Cruiser.

A spokesperson for Bury Farm told H&H: “Such is the incredible popularity of Bury Farm’s bareback show that tickets sold out within an hour of going on sale and we welcomed over 1,000 spectators to the centre for Saturday’s evening gala.

“The atmosphere in the arena was electric and we applaud each and every one of the competitors who took part. The Bury Farm team would like to thank everybody who joined us on Saturday for their loyal support and for making the bareback challenge such a unique and unmissable part of our show calendar.”

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