Harvey Smith

The legendary showjumper tells Bernard Bale about his trajectory in the sport, the talent of his own top horses and what he would like to see change on the circuit today

“I ’m a Yorkshireman, I speak my mind, I don’t do politics, I tell it as I see it. Some people agree with me, some people don’t – that’s their choice. My choice is to say what I think.”

Who else would make a statement like that other than one of Showjumping’s great legends – Harvey Smith? In December, he will be 85, yet he is still very active both physically and mentally and is still as passionate as ever about horses and equestrian sports.

“I never retired, I just switched sports,” says Harvey. “We still have a couple of showjumping horses that we keep for fun – my grandson rides them, but mostly we are in jump racing. I still take an interest in showjumping of course, but at the top level I don’t really like what I see.

“I switched from showjumping mostly because there were places and shows that I simply couldn’t get to – it seemed like there was some sort of writing on the wall and that the sport was going in a direction I neither understood nor wanted.

“It used to be that there were plenty of shows to which professionals like myself could go and compete. You went, you paid a small entrance fee and if you had some success, you went home with a bit of extra money and a more experienced horse. All that was starting to change and as we can see, it is nothing like that now.”

HARVEY speaks from long experience and growing up in the sport. He bought his first horse when he was a 15-year-old, whom few had heard of.