Laura Collett and Mr Bass at Aachen 2021
“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write … unfortunately Mr Bass (Chuck) has re-injured the injury he sustained at Badminton 2019” said Laura Collett, who has decided to retire the 13-year-old gelding owned by Keith Scott, Nick How and Laura
Winner of the Seven-Year-Old Championship at Le Mondial Du Lion in 2015 and runner-up in the 8/9 Year Old Class at Blenheim International in 2016, Mr Bass’ early promise was further shown with second place at his CCI5* debut at Luhmuhlen 2018
After a year out due to his injury, he returned to competition in 2020, competing at Les Etoiles de Pau CCI5* late in the season and having a good year in 2021 with a win in the Open Intermediate at Cornbury and fourth place individually at Aachen, helping the British team to win gold
“Chuck means the absolute world to me and owes me nothing, he’s my best friend and I owe it to him to do the right thing, therefore we have made the very difficult decision to retire him from top level Eventing … I can’t actually explain how hard it is to comprehend that I will never get to enjoy flying round the toughest cross country tracks with him again” says Laura on her social media
“Chuck will continue to make me smile every day and whatever the future holds, we will have fun together!”
It may not be the toughest track they’ve jumped around, but the Open Intermediate at Little Downham (1), where they finished in second place on a score of 21.90, shows how much they enjoyed ‘flying’ around cross country together
