HOLLY Smith loves Ireland. It was here that the British show jumper found Dougie Douglas, the horse that “changed my life”, and being part of the winning British team in the Aga Khan Trophy last August is among her career highlights.
It was 2009 when Holly travelled to Goresbridge to get some “better horses” to produce and sell. She had always been a grafter and when meeting her future husband, Graham Smith, she began concentrating on a career with horses.
“I am the daughter of one horsey parent. My mum was born to unhorsey parents who bought a house with a pony in the field and that is how she got into it.
“I did all sports growing up. I played a lot of hockey, did long distance running, anything at school really, I love any sport. As I grew up, I was competing in all equestrian sports. I absolutely love eventing, I was doing working hunters, dressage, whatever I needed to do,” she said.
Clever at school, Holly’s parents were keen she got a “proper job that paid well, a sensible option.”
“I did very well at school and got good A Levels. I lost my way a little bit then, I didn’t know what I wanted to do…well, I wanted to ride but my parents weren’t keen on it.
“Both my parents have normal jobs, and they busted a gut for me to do what I did. It was a big struggle for them.”
She settled on taking a gap year, and she went to work for her future husband, riding out racehorses. She found her passion for producing and dealing horses and sold everything from hunters, eventers, cobs, “basically anything that would sell. We got quite a few dealing horses in and I went on a selling spree and got them all sold.
“After that, Graham said to me, ‘Would you like to go to Goresbridge to get you some better horses to bring on and produce and sell?’ In the meantime I also went to Nottingham University for half a year to study chemistry but that didn’t work out.”
Dougie Douglas
The four-year-old Ard VDL Douglas gelding Dougie Douglas (ISH) was in the first batch of five young horses Holly and Graham bought out of Goresbridge in 2009. Bred by John O’Brien out of the High Roller mare Neills Girl, he cost €5,500.
He was initially bought as an event prospect, which Holly said he would have done brilliantly too, but his jumping ability shone through.
“The rest is history,” Holly says simply, on the horse that catapulted her into the limelight of the sport and helped her realise her talent as a top rider. Amazingly, Holly had never jumped bigger than 1.20m before the gelding came along and she was predominantly known as an event rider.
“I hadn’t jumped above 1.20m before I had him. I was always dealing horses and had done BE100s in eventing.”
Holly Smith and Dougie Douglas (ISH) \ George Gunn Photography
They made their international debut at Chestow CSI2* in 2013 and the following year, as a nine-year-old, the pair were called up for their first Nations Cup in Odense, Denmark.
Part of the British team of four Irish Sport Horses, Dougie Douglas was double clear on his debut to help Britain win and, two days later, won the three-star Grand Prix at the venue.
They jumped at the Nations Cup final in Barcelona at the end of the 2014 season before being selected for numerous Division 1 Superleague teams in 2015.
A clear round in Rome contributed to another British win and Holly’s first taste of success at the very highest level.
“I was very lucky. Graham was great, someone else would have made me sell Dougie but he let me hang on to him and see where we could get to. We were always going to sell him, it was just when. We had big offers at the beginning of that year [2015] but the Europeans were on and we thought we would just give it a crack. Because it takes a while for a rider to learn those big shows, and I was only learning.”
In November 2015, Dougie Douglas returned to Goresbridge and was sold for an Irish public auction record of €1.4 million at the Supreme Sale of Show Jumpers. He went on to continue to jump at five-star level with USA’s Katie Dinan.
Holly said that horse changed her life in more way than one.
“He 100% changed my life. It was so special that he went through from a four-year-old all the way up to Nations Cup level.
“We put in a super big indoor, I upgraded the lorry and we re-did some concrete, we spent a little bit more on prospects and saved a bit,” she said, in relation to the money, but added: “It changed my life more in the way that it gave me confidence and feeling.”
Despite not having the opportunity until Dougie Douglas came along, did she always feel she had the ability to get to the highest level? “If I’m honest, yes, I think so. There was so much to learn but I have always had a good eye for a stride. I always hoped I would, and it was just about getting the logistics and horses right. I’ve still got so much to learn.”
Irish horses
Other notable Irish horses produced by Holly include Piggy March’s (née French) 2018 World championship team gold medallist Quarrycrest Echo, who was bought as a show jumping prospect. She rode the Clover Echo-sired gelding, bred by John Dooley, until he was six and he was sold to March in 2013.
Holly has had multiple five-star and Puissance successes with the Roberta Dowley-bred gelding Quality Old Joker, by OBOS Quality, and among her current top string is Claddagh Iroko who was produced in Ireland by Shane Goggins and Clem McMahon before being sold.
Although she still loves to come to Ireland and try young horses, Holly said the landscape is changing slightly, and they are not as easy to find. “A lot of Irish horses carry continental bloodlines, but it is more their upbringing in Ireland, the way they are turned out, that is what I like about them. A lot of foreign horses turn out with attitude problems.
“Actually it is changing a little bit now because of Ireland’s links with America. To be honest, I used to be able to go over and try a lot of untried horses. Like Dougie Douglas, he was sent to be broken and taken straight to the sale.
“There are so many young Irish lads working in America now, a lot of horses go straight there. But we have have had some good horses from there and Harriet Nuttall has too, recently. I am willing to try anything. It doesn’t matter who it is from; a good name, bad name, I will always try them,” Holly said, encouraging Irish breeders to get in touch if they have promising young horses.
“Make the horses known to us, don’t forget about the British, reach out to me,” she added.
Hunting risk
Graham still buys most of his hunters in Ireland. A farrier by trade and born and raised in Quorn country, Graham is master and huntsman of the Readyfield Bloodhounds and he bought the pack in 2015, with the kennels now at their farm in Six Hills.
Holly is a huge fan of hunting and likes to take her show jumpers out across the country to keep them fresh, but sits out most meets nowadays. “I absolutely love hunting but I have taken a little bit of backseat recently because I broke my leg quite badly a couple of years ago,” she explained.
She fractured both her fibula and tibia and lost most of her horses due to an extended break. “I landed on my feet but I did a bad job on it. I lost a lot of my horses and took me a long time to set up again, nearly two years. So sometimes I feel it is an unnecessary risk.
“But it is brilliant, it gets you off the yard and out meeting people. A lot of owners we have met hunting,” she added, including Gordon Hall and his wife Su, the joint-owners of her top horse, Hearts Destiny.
Luck hasn’t always been on her side, and that fall in 2017 was the second bad leg break. In 2012, she had another bad fall and it took five operations to repair the damage after the original metalwork failed.
And last July, a young horse slipped on grass at home and she broke her collar bone. She had surgery on July 9th and four weeks later was on the winning Aga Khan team at the 2019 Dublin Horse Show with Hearts Destiny, the horse who took her to the 2018 WEG, and earned a team bronze medal bronze medal at the 2019 European Championships to help Britain qualify for the Tokyo Olympic Games.
The 11-year-old Heart Throb gelding had jumped three 1.20m classes by the middle of his eight-year-old year when arriving at Smith’s yard.
“Stephanie Scott bred him and brought him on really slowly, he wasn’t broken until a five-year-old. He is a very big horse and it took a long while to strengthen up. Steph did a great job with him, he had the upbringing that we like – he hunted, did working hunter, jumped. She kept everything very simple,” Holly explained of the gelding who many passed on buying.
Sweet horse
“Stephanie got in touch through Graham’s twin-brother Paul and asked if I had many horses in. He told her that I had lost a lot of my horses after breaking my leg. I met Steph half way and picked him up.
“He was very green but does everything very sweetly with a smile on his face and he is lovely to work with. His temperament is exceptional and he has insane ability.” One year later, the horse had gone from jumping 1.20m to jumping 1.60m at a senior championship as a nine-year-old.
Like many of the 25 horses in her yard, Hearts Destiny is half owned by the rider. “We have a lot of deals like that. If the horse is going to be in my string, we have to believe in the horse. I like to keep my focus on 10 or less quality horses. And we still deal a lot too and have Irish hunters that we sell from time to time,” she added.
Holly and Graham have a nine-year-old daughter Rosie who “absolutely loves the horses and all the animals. She is a cracking little rider, she goes hunting with her dad a lot, show jumps up to 90cm and has a super super pony. Hopefully we can give her a good grounding in it.”
The couple married on July 1st, 2016, after eight years together and a “four or five year engagement”. They featured in Pony Tales when Holly made the most of the leap year by inviting Graham to his own wedding. “I’ve been walking round with this engagement ring on for too many years, so today we gave Graham Smith an invite to his own wedding. Party on! Hats at the ready!” she said at the time.
Comeback kings
Asked for a highlight, Holly doesn’t hesitate when mentioning the Aga Khan. “Winning the Aga Khan…that was fantastic. Personally I had had a bit of an up and down year up until then and everything came together that day.
“I broke my collar bone quite badly [in July], and I hadn’t had the best form with Nations Cup. I was a little bit worried earlier in the year.
Winners: The British team of Scott Brash, Holly Smith, chef d'equipe Di Lampard, Emily Moffitt and Ben Maher at the 2019 Dublin Horse Show \ Laurence Dunne jumpinaction.net
“He [Hearts Destiny] jumped fantastic in Barcelona as well. I just missed out on the double clear bonus with a time fault. He won a class in Windsor and got me to meet the Queen, which was great. And he was clear in the World Cup at Olympia and I was leading rider. It’s been amazing,” she said, remembering 2019 fondly.
After the Aga Khan victory, I asked Di Lampard, British team chef d’equipe, what she thought of their chances on qualifying for Tokyo. “We are going to medal and get qualification,” was Lampard’s answer. She said it with absolute intent. Up until that day, it looked like Britain could be relegated from Division 1 after a poor run of results.
“Everybody was sure of it,” Holly said with a slight giggle when I recalled that memory from Dublin to her. “Ben [Maher] told me to make some space for medals. Ben is very inspiring. I don’t know him very well but I like being on teams with him,” she added.
Rotterdam went according to plan, and Lampard wasn’t joking when she said they would medal and, in turn, secure their Olympic qualification. Holly produced the second best British score at the championships behind Maher who won individual silver with Explosion W.
She finished 10th individually, just picking up a time fault in the final round of competition. “I think he is one of the best horses in the world.”
Holly welcomed the very exciting 12-year-old KWPN gelding Denver to her string in October and they have racked up a plethora of victories and top results since, including a five-star victory in Barcelona, two runner-up places at Olympia and victory at the sunshine tour in Vejer de la Frontera in early March.
“I would like to think I can count on him for Nations Cup and take some of the pressure off Hearts Destiny,” she said, adding that the postponement of the Olympic Games by a year will give her a chance to develop this new partnership and have a second option.
“On a personal level, it is both disappointing and exciting. I feel like I had the horse in good order, but also, now we have another year to get ready. And I can use that year to gain experience. It was the right decision.”
While nothing is gauranteed during these changes times, you can be sure Holly Smith will keep grafting.