The Hickstead Derby - An amazing legacy...

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Rambo

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I was looking through youtube today trying to find a video of the Hickstead Derby to show my au pair as they hadn't heard of it...and came across these amazing films from my heyday. There are some very special horses in there and i know some of the younger members of the forum may appreciate putting 'pictures' to names....for me they are they fairly recent memories
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If anyone has any more to add then please do so here...

Particularly pertinent in light of the very sad news of the passing of Douglas "Dougie" Bunn yesterday....

Enjoy !

John Whitaker - Ryan's Son:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soTo9rdR0ZM&feature=related


Nick Skelton - Apollo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg3s-_sAltg


Paul Schockemoohle - Deister
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4tIX6cSy0U

Michael Whitaker - Owen Gregory
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qGQnmnKIGU&feature=channel

Harvey Smith - Shining Example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOWlytvcS5M&feature=channel
 
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Paul and Deister make it look so easy, I think that horse would cut it in the modern sport too.

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I still love Apollo....for me the first of the 'new' type of Warmbloods
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Those were the days that made me want to jump and jump and jump. Douglas gave me my dream (jumping the speed derby) and although I will prob never achieve it I can dream on and it is all thanks to him!
 
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Paul and Deister make it look so easy, I think that horse would cut it in the modern sport too.

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I still love Apollo....for me the first of the 'new' type of Warmbloods
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Do you remember when he 'appeared' at HOYS (I think) and won nearly every class.
 
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Paul and Deister make it look so easy, I think that horse would cut it in the modern sport too.

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I still love Apollo....for me the first of the 'new' type of Warmbloods
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Apollo for me too, he was so special......... god, these were a while ago!
 
Pierre and Jappeloup were another amazing combination
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I remember watching them at HOYS or Olympia or RIHS around the same time as John and Milton.

I notice they hadn't bothered to remove the white lines from the football pitch before the SJ'ing started lol!
 
we were talking about Dougie Bunn recently in Hamburg. I will tell you all the story as it was related to me by the Germans about how the Hickstead Derby and the Bank came about.
Hamburg was the first place to stage such a class and Douglas Bunn visited the show center one winter as he envisioned a British version at the then fledgling Hickstead. Hamburg too has a bank, dyke and various other permenant obstacles and all were investigated and measured. However the Germans were astonished when they saw the finished product as the Hickstead Bank towered over their own version. Apparently when Doug did the original measurements for it, he hadnt allowed for the foot of snow on top of the Hamburg version! Now while that may or may not be quite true, the Germans seemed to be extremely fond of Mr Bunn and his 'flimsy' excuse to make his bank bigger than theirs! However it happened, a legendary venue/competition was born and many of us have great memories due to it. Mine particularly were Eddie Macken and Boomerang.
 
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Watching the derby from 21 years ago I had forgotton that the course has not changed. The one that is missing is Boomerang, I think he won 4 Derby's?

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Indeed...the course has not changed one bit....it's still just as big, just as long, and just as daunting as it ever was. Boomerang did indeed win it 4 times...but more than that i believe...he won it 4 times on the trot
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Hence the winners trophy is called the Boomerang Trophy
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The one thing that has changed in recent years is that the horses that used to contend the class were the very best of the best at the time...these days there seem to be 'derby specialists' that just comew out for this class and hence we don't see the world's best conteding the class. Can you imagine a Hickstead Derby featuring Shutterfly, Peppermill, Oki Doki, Lantinus, Arko and the like........coz that's what it used to be like
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and minw Weezy!

as for Rambo's comment about the best horses competing that is also true but the horses are really specialist these days arent they. This year in Hamburg Ludger Beerbaum was persuaded to enter on Goldfever..... suffice to say, at his great age, Goldfever took one look off the top of the bank in the Derby Trial and made it quite plain he wasnt about to learn to become a specialist either. Ludger did not contest the Derby proper and Goldfever was so out of sorts the next day he tried to gnaw marco kutsher's leg off......
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Fantastic memories and something which is featured in every single show jumping book I own.
Great Derby horses for me would be Boomerang, Ryan's Son, Monsanta (I adored that horse) and Diester and Kilbaha (sp).
And rider wise obviously Eddie Macken, Harvey Smith, John Whitaker and Micheal Whitaker.
 
Some fantastic vids there have never seen any of those horses jump before!
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So thanks very much for posting them.
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Would pay very good money to see that class Rambo!

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Me too
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Thank you Rambo!!!

I used to go and in the days when security wasn't an issue, I always sat on the stone wall that mounts the archway into the ring...... It was great as in those days the grass warm up was clearly in view aswell as the ring.....

I miss the old days, and was there this time last year, now I'm so far away in Canada, I'm missing horsey things....

And I remember a hunt ball at Hickstead a few years ago, when Dougie was there and said 'you girl are sexy like a rattle snake, you shake!' !!!!!!

Bx
 
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Pierre and Jappeloup were another amazing combination
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I remember watching them at HOYS or Olympia or RIHS around the same time as John and Milton.

I notice they hadn't bothered to remove the white lines from the football pitch before the SJ'ing started lol!

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It was always Jappeloup, Walzerkonig and Milton, and when the North Americans were in town Gem Twist and Big Ben as well. I remember watching an interview on Eurosport when Pierre was making Jappeloup his breakfast - which included his vitamins..... aka Bute
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Thanks ever so much for posting that - all back from my era too. I think I have the fondest memories for Ryan's Son as my favourite show-jumper because he was always cited as being so "unlikely" - such a character with his trademark bucks - I'm sure in that video the horse was annoyed that he found the oxer hard and thats why he threw in the buck on landing! It was interesting on that round I thought to see how different the course looked from today where the jumps are so much lighter and airy. Those looked like "proper" imposing fences, a double of gates and a wall.
And how fit did Appollo look? He looked like he could easily gone round that course again without breaking a sweat. I'm sure that rustic gate at the start of the course looks bigger than it is now but it could just be the camera angle.
Sad to hear about Douglas Bunn - I hadn't heard - he obviously gave so much to the sport.
As another blast from the past I'm sure Raymond Brookes-Ward was commentating in most of those clips.
A real blast of nostalgia for me.
 
What a fantastic post R. Was lovely to see those clips... most of them I would have been far too young to have even tried to remember!!!

Ahhhh..... just trawling through some more old hickstead footage now on YouTube!
 
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Thanks ever so much for posting that - all back from my era too. I think I have the fondest memories for Ryan's Son as my favourite show-jumper because he was always cited as being so "unlikely" - such a character with his trademark bucks - I'm sure in that video the horse was annoyed that he found the oxer hard and thats why he threw in the buck on landing! It was interesting on that round I thought to see how different the course looked from today where the jumps are so much lighter and airy. Those looked like "proper" imposing fences, a double of gates and a wall.
And how fit did Appollo look? He looked like he could easily gone round that course again without breaking a sweat. I'm sure that rustic gate at the start of the course looks bigger than it is now but it could just be the camera angle.
Sad to hear about Douglas Bunn - I hadn't heard - he obviously gave so much to the sport.
As another blast from the past I'm sure Raymond Brookes-Ward was commentating in most of those clips.
A real blast of nostalgia for me.

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The course is exactly the same today as it was then...and i can vouch for the size of the gate having walked the course last year. The difference is that you don't see too many 15.3's jumping it these days....Mondriaan is nearer 17.2 i believe lol! It's still 1.60m....and bl**dy solid
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I loved Apollo....and the way Nick rode him...so fluid and athletic . Interesting to see the way the horse took on the dyke too...almost like he was saying 'i know what i'm doing here dad...leave it to me'. I don't think Nick's style of riding has changed at all over the years....Michael Whitaker's has though and to a lesser extent so has John's.
 
Owen Gregory in particular looks tiny.
1.60m is massive any way you look at it. I remember the days when I thought I'd be able to jump the wall that is fence 1 no bother - it'd give me nightmares to contemplate it now! Lost my bottle in my old age LOL!
 
Ryans Son for me! Such a lovely horse, beautiful to look at and beautifully ridden.

I was almost certainly there that day, and it was family tradition to be one of the first cars to arrive at Hickstead.
If we didn't bag the first space on the viewing bank, (overlooking the collecting ring) we had failed! It made it a long day from the other side of Southampton but terrific for seeing the riders and horses just pottering about before the tension of the competitions.

So nice to hear Raymond B-W's commentary too.

Thank you for posting these.
 
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