When Rachel Proudley canters down the wall in Easy Boy in front of a full house at the Horse of the Year Show on Saturday night, the reigning showjumping queen will have something else on her mind.
The horse steps on an imaginary sixpence in front of a fence made of wooden blocks, to give him the best opportunity to open a view, to all intents and purposes an insurmountable obstacle.
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Too far or too close to the fence, which will be about 7ft high, and which he will not be able to see even from behind his horse, will result in failure, as he will be too fast or too slow or lack of numbers.
When Proudley, 21, takes part in the Ripon Lego Foods Puissance, it will require a point of accuracy to deliver the horse to him in the best position to receive a critical amount of revs. A Safe Boy will require control – French boys are power – and equally fortitude. Nor can he doubt it.
Although the origins of the French champion’s name and the indoor record (7ft 10in) are held by a German, these days he is a curious British and Irish training institution at the big horse shows – London, Birmingham, Bolesworth and Dublin.
It is not anti-clockwise but only five circles high. The wall will start at 1.80m (5ft 11in – 4in taller than the rider), will rise in increments of roughly 4in and, to keep the horse warm, there will be four other substantial obstacles in the arena.
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As the height of the wall increases, the number of others jumps, so that there are only two, one and the other gnaws the wall. Easy Boy is 2.20m (7ft 3in), just 4in below Nick Skelton’s British high jump record, and if more than one person is left in the competition after five rounds, the spoils – £17,000 – are split.
It’s been two years since a then-teenage Proudley, one of the sport’s fast rising stars, first rode Easy Boy (full name Easy Boy de Laubry Z), so-so shows the wool through the tracks of smaller but more technical, in the first beat in this show in 2024.
Proudley, at age 21, is one of the show’s fast-rising stars
“Putting Easy Boy on the loose didn’t cross our minds,” he recalls. “But in return [a kind of barter] for entering the three classes with another horse, they said we could have a place in that if we had something for . We built a wall of ramen shells at 1.70, had one practice and went on.”
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Easy Boy, a 12-year-old blooded 16.3 hands, finished third with a jump of 2.10m (6ft 9in) on that debut. He was not defeated in the loss, because he became, almost by accident, one of the rock star dance shows, more famous and popular than the famous male winners.
At the same time, Proudley raised the board while trying to fit his way into the Brashes, Breens and Whitakers’ franchise, who are mostly chasing mega dollars a year.
At the Dublin Horse Show last year, Proudley became the first woman to win the title in 61 years, since Stirling Moss’s sister Pat Moss-Carlsson, who was also a five-time member of the Ladies Motor Show.
Proudley celebrates after winning Puissance in Easy Boy at the 2015 Dublin Horse Show – Getty Images/Shauna Clinton
Proudley can’t claim any company titles, but he does have an HGV Class 1 license on the side, which means he can drive a 44-tonne articulated lorry full of horses, which, by any standard, is pretty punchy for a 21-year-old.
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Although the dance show has fallen on the television and back pages – and there is a lot of money abroad – the sport is in reasonable shape, at least in terms of participation.
The best horses, and foals too, exchange hands for six or seven sums, and the best riders spend their winters in Spain or Florida chasing the great dames. As an adult and a professional, it requires talent and innate horsemanship, but it can go a long way in youth if you are from a wealthy family where you can buy the best horses.
Proudley, however, came from a less prosperous place. His parents are sheep farmers in Yorkshire near Stokesley. Angie and Paul Proudley were non-horsey but, although it is not known how obsessed she became, she managed to persuade Rachel to buy a foal and knock on the stable when she was six.
“I started doing gymkhanas at local agricultural shows, but the first kid didn’t like jumping so I didn’t jump until I got up another bull after two years,” he recalls. “It was more hand jumping. I fell in love with it and took the leap. My dad carted me around to shows and I also went with the Cleveland Hunt a lot.”
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She came up through the ranks of the elephants but had her big break three years ago when Richard Howley, a wool showman, and his wife Morgan Kent (HK Horses, a large breeding and racing operation) saw her at Wetherby and asked if she could ride him.
“I wouldn’t be where I am at all if it wasn’t for Richard and the HK team,” he revealed. “It has always been my dream to work for the HK team as a professional.”
De Equis founder Richard Howley (left) gave Proudley a burst of laughter
While most of the horses he rides are HK, Easy Boy is owned by Graham Ward, his father’s mate and on a farm at Stokesley where he is also hunted by his father – whether it’s his daughter’s wool show hunt or show father’s hunter jump seems to be contentious – to send him sweet between fights.
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“I was probably 18 when I started riding ‘Boy,'” he continues. I set out to ride him in the 1.30m class. He was stronger than he was diligent and in the finer races he was often pinned to the bar. He wanted to jump the big fences, but he wasn’t lucky enough because he didn’t observe the small fences as much as he should. Therefore there is more in us than the first. fences
“When he’s going to the wall he’s quite nervous – at his biggest I’m at the level of the top brick in the eye – but the key for me, because he has so much target, is not to go too early and not to press too hard too quickly.
“You have to be underneath because otherwise they end up crushing it so it’s all about timing. So when I come around the corner I wait, I wait. The first of the two laps will be sharp to the wall, so everything around him is relaxed as much as possible. Then he’s bigger, the more you have to help him. But I’m happy because he’s bigger. 2.20. If he was bigger, he could probably go.
Not many show jumpers are more down-to-earth and grounded in the environment than a North Yorkshire sheep farmer’s daughter, but for a moment tonight, well, everyone will look down on everyone from a great height.
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