Your celebrity encounters with horses.... :)

My friend is a freelance RI and one of her pupils keeps her horse at the yard Mark Todd stayed at for 6 months last year while he was looking for his own place..... We met his horses Gandalf, Mouse and others, but he offered to jump my friends horse for her. She is a Dressage rider who likes all her hooves on the ground, her 6 year old DWB was bred as a showjumper and she wanted to see him jump. Mark really liked him and Rusty jumped really well for him.

The only other person to ride him (apart from my friend obviously!) is Carl Hester, so he's been ridden by 2 Olympic medallists and my friend!!!
 
I went to a lecture/demo at Merrist Wood and said hello to a girl I recognised and was chatting to her for a few minutes when I realised I didn't know her at all, it was Kelly Marks! She was lovely and didn't let on that she didn't know who the hell I was!!

David Dimbleby lives opposite the yard and is often out walking his dogs, he looks like an old tramp lol!!

I had tea with Emile Faurie when I worked for Bar Hammond and Pippa and William Funnell used to come to her place quite a lot too.
One of her brilliant stories was one time someone called Anne phoned her and she said 'Anne who?' - Princess Anne was the reply lol!
At the Surrey Union hunt lunch one of the liveries nephews was there, a really nice guy called Toby Anstis who stroked the hounds and chatted to me for ages :)

I worked at a livery yard where Wayne Channon and his wife Debbie kept their first horse before either of them could ride very well, and I used to have lessons off of Vicky Thompson when she lived in a caravan at Sedgewick with Rocky before she became famous.

I was hunting with the SU and Pippa was out on Sir Barnaby, we ended up riding together and came up to a massive hedge with a huge ditch in front of it, there was no way I was going to bottle out of it in front of her and we jumped it together side by side!! It was immense lol :)

I was very good friends with Matthew Harding's sister, she had a horse at the same yard as me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Harding
 
bigboyrocky said:
Ive only had two.. the first was dressage writing for Dawn French and Lenny Henrys daughter at our old yard. Was lovely to see that although she was at a very expensive school, they hadnt gone out and brought her an absoloute schoolmaster, and she did a good job of handling him when he was being cheeky!!

The second was at badminton this year... Katie Price walked in to the stands (non VIP part!) all glammed up, looking a bit out of place with her crew behind her and no one really aknowledged(sp?) her so she walked straight back out again! :p thought it was quite funny :)

So what are yours?? :)
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I shook hands with Tim Stockdale as other half introduced me whilst helping him set up jumps in the arena he'd booked at work. Didn't quite know what to say but was delighted to meet him and gabbled away for about five minutes! I've jumped in front of Robert Smith who was watching my class at his yard when he held a Derby there and my horse stopped about five times in the one class - I was extremely flustered as I knew he was watching - he is totally my hero and I felt a right muppet:eek:!!!
 
Kiribati_uk said:
Well i got interviewed by Derek Thompson(channel 4 racing) at Cheltenham few years back, ridden racehorses belonging to Micheal O'leary. Seen Tim Henman eventing and will never forget seeing Tom Cruise at Badminton( early 90s) And I live/ride by Robert Plants house, but Im too young to know who he is!!
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I live by Robert Plant too - I'm old enough to know him lol. Have seen him out hacking on the lanes - he always slows down and waves as we say thank you :)
 
I was in the warm up at Oldencraig when I asked a lady what the time was, when I went in to the arena (on time) I was asked by the judge to leave as they were still writing up the last class. As I went back to the warm up to wait the lady with the watch asked me why I was out so quickly, so I made a silly joke about poor organising. What I didn't realise was I was talking to Vikki Thompson-Winfield (or is it Winfield-Thompson??)... And the next rider who went in after me was Toni Terry.

Non horse related, I played bogies on a night out in london with Richard from 'Dick and Dom' a-la childrens tv! Great fun!!
 
Claire Balding came onto our trade stand at burghley this year - twice!

Oh and I have also nearly run over a royal - Princess Anne, while I was driving Dh's car across the tradstand area at Gatcombe to pack down our stall. I think she'd just finished at the prize giving or something. I was so gobsmacked it was her I could barely manage to swerve!
 
mainpower said:
but my favourite horsey/celebrity story involves my friend, who was riding in windsor great park with her friend. Another horse rider approached them, at which point my friend's friend's horse started to throw a wobbler, so she moved him off the track and onto the grass so the other rider had room to pass safely. But the other rider got cross and said "get off the grass, you're not allowed on the grass, do you think you own the park"? To which my friend's friend (who was none other than zara phillips) said "i don't, but my granny does"! :p
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classic!
 
Well I ride past Simon Cowell's house in Holland Park alot I often have a chat to his driver when he is outside waiting to take Simon to the X Factor studio!!! Simon sometimes comes out to the car whilst Im chatting and says hello:D
 
I met Geoff Billington - he opened the indoor school at my old riding school. That's my only brush though: I meet and work out with a lot more famous people in the gym! Wigan Warriors were the last one, Gloucester Rugby Club too. I can confirm that Mike Tindall (Zara Phillips' man) is both a machine and a gentleman!
 
Spent a week with accompanying my daughter whilst she was receiving dressage lessons from Tineke and Imke Schellekens-Bartels. Imke rode my daughter's Fjord! (We have video proof). They both loved him.
Have also met Edward Gal (without Totilas unfortunately) and Hans Peter Minderhoud.
 
I taught Johnathan Hyde's (Bruce Ismay is Titanic, also in The Mummy and Jumanji) two daughters to ride. The lived in a house next door to where i used to ride. I also babysat them both, one is now an actress having been in Jane Eyre, St Trinnians and Merlin. Johnathan used to drop me home after I had babysat too - lovely family!
 
When my mum was little they used to live next door to part of the Whittaker clan. My Grandma always tells me the tale of when she went and had a go at one of them because their cows had broken through the fencing and let a lot of livestock into her garden.

She now claims (after she realised I was interested in horses and knew who the Whittakers were) that one of the "livestock" was one of their showjumpers...(I can't vouch for the truth of this... Grandmother may be telling porkies)
 
He's not really famous but having lunch at windsor horse show Martin collins (the man who owns the arena surfacing company!) sat on the same table as us and started talking arenas to us! :L
 
I recieved a rosestte from Princess Royal at Windsor International Horse Trials as our Pony Club were the runners for xc scores. Was great fun riding round the event.

Competed against Robert Lindsay (My Family) daughter at Patchetts.

Franke Sloothaak's daughter was in my year at school.

Recieved a prize from William Fox Pitt at a Pony Club prize giving when I was about 14.
 
I'm proud to say we organise clinics with Pat Burgess now and again :D Utter legend, but no, not a celebrity.

We also went to a Geoff Billington demo once, but they had printed the wrong phone number for bookings on the ad and nobody showed up!! We all got our money back, (other than me, mum and sister there were only two other people there!) We all got our money back and had a shortened demo for free. I got his autograph and was very happy when he (jokingly) offered me a jump on his horse. I did say yes..... Well, it was worth a shot :D
 
I worked at Guards Polo Club many many moons ago and I went to their annual charity auction.There were loads of names there - Billy Connelly and Pamela Stevenson, Sting and Trudie (who were both beautiful), Ulrika ka ka (gorgeous), Joan Collins (tiny tiny little creature), Prince Charles, Michael Barrymore (totally up himself and wearing loads of make up!).
 
Our RC regularly has sponsorship for the Annual Show from John Whittaker and Oliver Townend, as both their families are local to us. We have seen their horses out and about in the area for years.
 
chatted with Tim Stockdale at Windsor outside the loo, rather polite conversation about his round,
my godfathers brother in law is Richard Davidson, unfortunately never met him but he never fails to produce a good set of tickets to olympia whenever asked : )
I am also having some help with my boy from Tina Cook (lucky girl that I am!) because Her brother trains our racehorse. She is truly amazing, didnt think you could ever learn that much in such a short period of time!!!
Anyway excuse all the horsey celebrities...!
 
Red Rum made a celeb appearance at a show I was competing at yonks ago when I was a kid, I got to sit on the grass beside him and stroke him, just me and his groom, who answered all my questions. RR had a tiny nosebleed which i noticed, i was really worried but his groom wasn't!
had 2 big chestnuts stable over at my yard, different years, both of whom went on to win Badminton. They both happened to stay in the same stable, which was then my 'lucky' stable!
As for people, umm, saw Clare Balding a few times last year in Burghley shopping village and the third time I went up to her and told her what a fan I was.
Riders - lots and lots over the years. A former team GB rider asked me how a particular fence on Weston Advanced track had ridden, which was v nice, and a top NZ rider got me to talk him round the whole of Gatcombe Int course because he'd walked it in a bit of a rush... good job he asked, as he thought the last fence was a parallel (he'd just glanced at it from a distance) when in fact it was an in-and-out... could have been an interesting surprise in midair! I had a few nice compliments about my grey from top riders, which I really cherish.
 
Not a celeb, or even famous himself, but used to sometimes play dominoes with Donald Wittaker, father of John, Steven, etc. , Ex OH went to school with Ian the youngest of the brothers. We have stewarded wtih Geoff Billingtons counsen (now sadly no longer with us). Oliver Townend came to our place on work experience with our farrier, his uncles cattle break through into our land on a regular basis :) And our Farrier was trained by John Whittakers farrier :) And as a very silly one I used to shoot on Harvey Smiths ex wifes land :D
 
:rolleyes::D sorry can't get passed the image of Ryan Jones on a surf board! (sorry it's a welsh thing lol) nice image for a cold evening tee hee... On subject rem .Geoff billing ton used to get his hair cut at a yard I was on briefly...Jon Bon Jovi many years ago Monty Panesar at Heathrow. Various rugby players... John Whitaker....
 
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