Jo Bates

The showing producer talks to Aimi Clark about world-class ballet, riding the great Fleetwater Opposition and almost giving up horses for love

JO BATES’ life story is more interesting than the majority of books currently listed on the UK’s official best-sellers chart.

It takes surprising twists (she once sold car parts and was a debt collector), makes unpredictable U-turns (she gave up horses and went to work in London) and then just when you think you’ve reached the finale, she announces that she really wanted to pursue world-class ballet.

The 55-year-old showing producer, who recently piloted Suzanna Welby’s reigning Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) hack champion Elusive to take the same title at Royal Windsor and South of England, had a good shot at succeeding in the classical dance style too.

Jo was on a coaching programme for the Royal Ballet School until her mid teens, but severe knee pain and a subsequent operation to realign both joints forced her to solely focus her attention on the beautiful ponies bred by her mother Elizabeth Morgan’s Greenacres Stud for the show ring.

“I loved ballet and I was very good at it, but I had dodgy knees because they weren’t strong enough to cope with all the ballet and riding I was doing. In the end I had to choose,” says Jo, who is based at the Prentices’ — they own Bill Levett’s four-star campaigner Shannondale Titan — Starveall Barn, near Banbury.

Jo commutes from nearby Cropredy while daughter Holly drives 50 minutes from Northampton, where she lives with her boyfriend Jack, a teacher.

Jo’s string includes Elusive plus Ann Drabble’s middleweight Lowmoor Windsor — recently returned after being injured last term — and Cashelbay Rocket, Robbie Fallon’s exciting Connemara stallion who arrived in April. All are HOYS bound.