Producing successful young sport horses can be big business as well as hugely gratifying for those involved. But plenty of debate surrounds how to train a young horse in the most beneficial way.
Young horse producer and showjumper Jennifer Thompson imports largely unbroken three- and four-year-olds from the Continent to produce and sell on through her Vecthom Sporthorses business. There’s not much she doesn’t know about producing young horses for the commercial market as well as for the top of the sport. One of the most successful graduates to have passed through her stables is Tim Gredley’s current championship horse Medoc De Toxandria.
Here’s what Staffordshire-based Jennifer had to say about the education process she used with Medoc De Toxandria and the business of producing young showjumping horses when we caught up with her recently. You can read the full article and story behind Medoc De Toxandria, with insight from current rider Tim Gredley and groom Paul Drew, in the 24 October issue of Horse & Hound magazine.
Jennifer looks back fondly on her time with Medoc De Toxandria, AKA “Eddie”, who arrived as an unbroken youngster and was “so easy” to back and bring on.
“Everything you did with Eddie was like he’d been there and done that all before,” says Jennifer. “Right from the get go, everything you asked of him he was ready to move on to the next stage. As a producer you had to put the brakes on because every time you asked him a question, he’d come back with ‘I can do that, now give me something more’. It was so tempting and he could have been a horse that was rushed and ruined in his early days.”
How to train a young horse: “The psychological training was so important”
Jennifer did a “bit of everything” in the early days with the son of Der Senaat III, who was bred in Belgium by Werner Dierckx.
“I worked very hard on his flatwork, making sure he rode in a snaffle, and we worked him with the dressage boards. I took him arena eventing, too, just to give him good foundations,” she says.
“It was the psychological training as well as the physical training that was so important for Eddie,” she explains. “With a horse like him who wanted to achieve more than his years, it was so important that I trained him to believe he could jump whatever was in front of him. It was only ever over bounces or trotting poles – he hardly jumped a single fence or courses, it was just fun activities and gymnastics. I knew that would stand him in good stead for jumping big tracks in the future because he would then have the belief he could go in and conquer, rather than doubt himself. You can see now how much confidence he has. Producing Eddie was all about keeping things fun and making the jumps achievable.
“He’d only been to one training show at home before we took him to Spain because I knew it wouldn’t bother him – he was so unflappable.”
Young horse producer Jennifer Thompson with Medoc De Toxandria as a five-year-old.
Jennifer was looking for a five-year-old to compete in Spain alongside her older horse and the young Medoc fitted the bill perfectly.
“In Spain he got dubbed the war horse because everyone was falling off their fresh five-year-olds whereas I was hacking ‘Eddie the Eagle’ round happily and he just got this reputation,” says Jennifer. “He’d always be standing there rock steady.”
Unflashy five-year-old is “massively overlooked”
Jennifer says she knew from Medoc’s first fence that he had all the scope and talent to be a top horse, but she “knew her limitations” and she wasn’t the person to get him there.
“I would have been selfish to keep him. My job was done with the producing side of things, he needed to be taken to the top,” she says.
However “he was massively overlooked” by potential buyers, she reveals.
“He wasn’t a flashy five-year-old,” she says. “He wasn’t jumping loop the loops and throwing his back end away. He never felt the need to overjump, he was never exuberant, he just jumped double clear after double clear.
Medoc De Toxandria jumping in his younger days.
“He’s a plain horse and he rode a bit the way I produced him – I didn’t force him into an outline, so we always cantered on a loose rein and if he wanted to have his head a bit lower, he was careful enough to get himself out of the way of the jumps and careful enough to do his job.“
“I wasn’t prepared to do certain training methods with him as a four-year-old”
Jennifer believed there was “plenty of time for him to sit up and engage his back end later, he was only five. My thinking was he needed to get strong behind first. But people have this perception of five-year-olds and the pressure is on to produce them a certain way to get the big bucks. I wasn’t prepared to do certain training methods with him as a four-year-old to make him aesthetically pleasing as a five year old.
“I said that one day he’ll go into the big ring and it won’t matter how many crowds or how much atmosphere is about him, he’ll only focus on his job and that’s exactly what he’s done,” Jennifer continues.
“He was always so consistent and he had the heart to get you out of trouble. He was never looking for a get out – he wanted to get to the fence, jump it, and get to the other side, then look for the next one. He went above and beyond to do his best – he was naturally careful and that doesn’t come from any methods, it was just natural talent.
“I was Eddie’s biggest fan, waving the flag for him, he was so special to me,” she adds. “I said to my friend Guy Williams this is without doubt a top horse and I hounded him to buy him, but he didn’t want him. A lot of professionals had the opportunity to buy him very cheaply, but we kept being told ‘he isn’t good enough’. Nobody was interested in him. All I wanted was for Eddie to end up in the right hands because I knew how special he was.
“At the end of the tour in Spain, I did a straight swap for a horse of Guy’s I’d bonded with. The plan was that his daughter Maisy would ride Eddie for a bit as a rock-steady five-year-old because he feels more like a 30-year-old. I said if you sell him, you’ll forever regret it, but he just couldn’t see the potential.
“Guy said last year ‘I can’t believe I let that horse go!’”
Tim Gredley and Medoc De Toxandria competing at the European Showjumping Championships 2023 in Milan, Italy. Credit: Ben Clark Photography
Medoc De Toxandria finds his perfect rider
Medoc De Toxandria competed with Belgian rider Caroline De Laet then US rider Noel Fauntleroy, before Irish showjumper Trevor Breen took the reins for a spell in 2019 and that’s when “people started to notice him,” says Jennifer.
“It was only when he was in the big ring jumping clear in the grands prix that people started to look at him properly,” she says.
A couple of years later, Medoc ended up in the yard of David Simpson, with whom he jumped double clear in a CSIO3* Nations Cup, helping Ireland to victory.
British showjumper Tim Gredley bought Medoc from David in 2022, immediately striking up a superb partnership and they’ve gone from strength to strength, representing Great Britain in Nations Cups, the 2023 European Championships and they’ve been placed in some of the world’s biggest grands prix – clearly fulfilling all the early promise Jennifer saw in the young Medoc.
Jennifer says she finds it very hard not to compare all her young horses to Eddie now.
“He set the bar way too high for anything else!” she says. “Nothing compares. We had such a bond and I trusted him implicitly. He had this grit, he concentrated so hard and he had this determined attitude. I always knew he was good enough to be one of the world’s best showjumpers. I’ve never sat on another horse like him and I’m so proud of all he’s achieved.”
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