Prolific para dressage medallist Anne Dunham has paid tribute to the Welsh cob who won championship medals all over the world.
Welsh section D Teddy Edwards was put down aged 23 on Thursday (28 June) as a result of the ongoing effects of PPID (Cushing’s).
“It was a heart-wrenching goodbye,” Anne told H&H. “He’s been a very big part of my life.”
Teddy, who was owned by Sally Brown, was bought just as a riding horse as Anne did not have one at the time.
“He was a horse no one expected anything from, but he gave everything,” Anne said. “He went from strength to strength. The first time he went down the centre line in international competition, he won – and he just kept on winning.”
Anne and Teddy won team gold and individual gold and silver at the 2008 Olympics, team gold and individual silver and bronze at the 2010 World Equestrian Games and team and double individual gold at the 2011 European Championships.
He was reserve for the 2012 Olympics, after which he had “a happy hacking retirement” with Anne in Wiltshire.
“He was a very naughty boy a lot of the time,” Anne said. “He’d buck and spin, and was strong out hacking; if we had a canter it tended to get a lot faster!
“He was a very cheeky, and a very special horse.”
Anne said Teddy “loved being the centre of attention” and could be pushy on the ground – he always had to be led in a bridle – but he was “never nasty”.
“He was just full of life,” she added.
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“But he’d had Cushing’s for about four years and unfortunately, he was always very difficult to medicate; he wouldn’t eat it in food and you couldn’t syringe it. He’d had a bad start before he came to the Browns so he worried about people feeding him things.
“He’d become very prone to laminitis because of the Cushing’s and he wasn’t enjoying life so we had to let him go.”
For all the latest news analysis, competition reports, interviews, features and much more, don’t miss Horse & Hound magazine, on sale every Thursday.
In this week’s Horse & Hound magazine, out on 28 June, is a full report from the Hickstead Derby meeting, a six-page report from Royal Ascot, a feature on the much-discussed whip rules and, in this week’s ‘vet clinic’, find out how to spot the signs of sand colic.
