Final farewell to cheeky ‘complete showman’ champion who won it all

The owner of a former Royal International Horse Show (RIHS) supreme and Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) champion has paid tribute to the “complete showman” after his death aged 28.

Amanda Marfleet told H&H Captain Hastings (Heccy) had been starting to struggle slightly owing to his age, and they made the call before it became an issue.

“We had a lot of fun with him, as well as him being a super show horse,” she said. “He was absolutely brilliant.”

Amanda bought Heccy as a schoolmaster for her then 15-year-old daughter Kate soon after the family returned to the UK having been living in Australia. By that time, Heccy had stood champion riding horse at HOYS with Allister Hood, but later measured out, although he had a life height certificate at the time of the competition.

Amanda had met Allister at a championship and when she saw Heccy’s advertisement, rang Allister to ask if he thought her daughter would be able to ride him.

“He said absolutely, so I bought Heccy over the phone,” she said. “Allister had been supreme at the RIHS with him, won HOYS and been British Show Horse Association supreme. And he was absolutely brilliant for us; Kate was reserve supreme at the Royal, side-saddle, we took him to HOYS every year; they won all sorts.”

Amanda said Heccy was not averse to showing his cheeky side, such as when they took him to Norfolk the first year they had him.

“His gallop was always brilliant, then he’d pull up on the short side; he knew the job so well,” she said. “But at Norfolk, he didn’t. They had led coloureds or something in the next ring, with a bit of a gap between the barriers, and he ran into Allister , and pushed him into the other ring. He just said ‘More work, Kate, more work’!”

Heccy was retired from the show ring when Kate went to university but he went on to excel elsewhere, turning his hoof to Trec with Amanda – and becoming national champion.

A picture of them fording a river featured in H&H in 2012, which indirectly led to one of showing’s most famous recent partnerships.

“[Allister’s wife] Anne rang as she’d seen the picture, and she asked if I had anything nice,” Amanda said. “I said ‘I’ve got a cob who will win the coloureds at HOYS’ but that he was for me! A few weeks later, she rang and said ‘Are you sure you don’t want to sell that cob’. I said I supposed they could come and look at him, and Allister didn’t even get on him, he said ‘We’ll come and get him tomorrow’. And that was the start of Our Cashel Blue.”

And as well as his own showing success, and influencing others’, Heccy had a “lovely life”, Amanda said.

“He had his moments – a girl messaged me out of the blue who took him to his first indoor show, and he lay down in the line-up!” she said.

“No one knew how he was bred but someone messaged me and said he was out of a thoroughbred mare who had won point-to-points, and by It’s Otto. We did start jumping him, did the working show horse at Windsor and he had five down and I was mightily relieved; that was the beginning and end of his jumping career, and Kate’s! But he loved Trec; we went all over Europe and he was just a superstar. Then he had the best retirement life, out in 10 acres with his best friend under the stars.

“Bless him, he was a complete showman and the best schoolmaster you could want.”

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