Clare Prentice and Athleet V Photo courtesy Fiona Scott-Walker
There is no doubt that the United Kingdom is the home of eventing. A seemingly endless supply of well run, professional competitions against the best of the best is what attracts so many equestrian athletes from all areas of the globe. There is no shortage of Australian riders based in the UK today and one man who has been here for over 15 years is Bill Levett. Despite his recent success at Saumur and Tattersalls, Bill is incredibly humble. “Like everyone else, I came here with nothing,” he says.
To reach the top level of any sport is no easy process and it certainly requires a lot of help and support from many people. To gain owners in your home country is hard enough but to do so in another country as a foreign competitor is quite a challenge. Bill first met Clare Prentice in a shuttle car at the Open Championships at Gatcombe six years ago. Clare got chatting with Bill and explained that they were having problems with an advanced mare.
“We decided that we’d try to find a rider to see whether they thought that she was an advanced horse, so she went to Bill,” she said.
“I ended up with the horses that were based at their place,” Bill said.
Bill and Shannondale Titan Photo: Pauline Chevalier
This partnership has continued over time and Clare currently owns two of Bill’s rides in Shannondale Titan and Athleet V. Shannondale Titan, or Alfie as he is known,won the CCI3* in Saumur in May and has recently been listed on the Australian Normandy 2014 squad
“We still can’t quite believe it,” Clare reflects. “I still keep on going over it and thinking ‘gosh I own a 3* winner’ ”
The win at Saumur is undoubtedly Clare’s biggest highlight as an owner so far.
“We thought that this year we’d go and hopefully get a qualification for a 4* level but we weren’t really expecting to go and win at Saumur but he was just brilliant all week.”
As a former competitor and regular commentator at British Events across the country, Clare is heavily involved in the sport.
“I love the sport and just enjoy watching the horses.” There are many different types of owners within the sport, some are quite involved where as other tend to sit back and enjoy from afar. Clare certainly does not sit back and watch and will often join in with riding, including taking the horses to the gallops.
“I have quite a hands on involvement with them which probably isn’t actually that easy at times for Bill,” she jokes. “When Bill goes to Australia for a holiday, sometimes the horses will need to stay in work or whatever and I’ll have them at home.”
As a British citizen, owning horses for a foreign rider is something that has the potential to draw some criticism. “People have asked me and said how can you own for an Australian rider and I say well I didn’t really select the nation, I selected the rider.” Having said that, Clare still found it strange when the Australian national anthem was played at Saumur but she admits it is not something she thinks about often.
“Most of the time he’s just a rider riding a horse rather than Australia,” she said. “I think also riders like Bill, Paul, Andrew Nicholson for New Zealand – they’ve been based over here for so long as well that they have a loyal band of British supporters.”
“It can be difficult because sometime these British owners can have pressure put on them not to give their rides to foreign riders that are based in England,” Bill says.
However, fortunately there are those who do not bow to this pressure and there are plenty of British owners who have horses based with foreign riders in the UK.
“Some of the owners that you have, are not really that focused on being in team Australia, they’re more interested in seeing their horses being produced and running at events,” Bill says.
“Most of them are very generous in the sense that if you have got a horse with enough potential to be on a team and they don’t think it’s the wrong thing to do to the horse then they will go along with it.”
There is no doubt that the sport relies on people like this and with so many riders from all parts of the globe having access to such quality horses, the quality of competition will only continue to grow.
Article by Emily Penney
