British team legend Over To You, winner of eight championship medals include individual silver at the 2002 World Championships, is still going strong at 34 years old, says his rider Jeanette Brakewell.
“He’s still being shod. He still has his teeth and he’s still vaccinated. His body looks old, but his eye is still quite young and his face is still very young and he can still be grumpy,” says Jeanette in an interview on episode 120 of the Horse & Hound Podcast.
“Sometimes when you get him in from the field, if he’s being a bit giddy you’ve just got to watch he doesn’t try and kick you or put a foot on your head. He’s still pretty sharp when he gets a bit wound up.”
Jeanette joined the podcast to talk about her time with Over To You as part of our World Championship preview episode. She and “Jack” did their first championship together in 1998 at Pratoni del Vivaro, the venue for this year’s eventing World Championships.
She particularly remembers the hilly terrain on the cross-country course.
“It’s probably about halfway around the course they usually have a fence right at the top of this hill, and then running down to some major question at the bottom of the hill,” says Jeanette, referring to Pratoni’s legendary “Slide”, a feature she also recalls watching British pathfinder Daisy Berkeley over at the 2007 European Championships.
“Daisy was on Spring Along – I remember her jumping that fence at the top of the hill and coming down to this skinny target fence at the bottom and she absolutely nailed it. But they always put a really tough question there.”
As for her own Pratoni World Championship cross-country experience, competing as individuals on the British squad, Jeanette says she didn’t ride Over To You as well as she should have done and came home with 20 jumping penalties.
“There was a fence at the top of the slope where we had to pop off a drop and then it was a wave type fence, so you could pick and choose where you were going to jump – either at the point or the dip of the fence,” she says.
“And I do remember walking the course scratching my head a bit and still not really clear about how I was going to jump it. I jumped it and just kind of froze a bit and said, ‘Over to you, Jack’ and I think I just put him in a completely difficult position. That’s one of his very few [cross-country] faults. It was my fault and I think I was just a little bit overawed by the whole occasion.”
Jeanette and Over To You went on to make seven British team appearances at the next seven consecutive championships, becoming the most capped British eventing combination of all time.
Hear more about Jeanette’s experiences with Over To You, including their 2002 World Championship individual silver, by tuning in to episode 120 of The Horse & Hound Podcast here, or search “The Horse & Hound Podcast” in your favourite podcast app.
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