Inspired by star thoroughbred Artist at Maryland? Discover more horses bred to race who reached the top in other disciplines

“Chased leaders, weakened halfway, tailed off before three out and pulled up before next. 100/1”. So reads the final entry on the late eventing superstar Arctic Soul’s racing record following his short-lived career on the track.

That uninspiring performance in a maiden hurdle by the 67-rated Luso son on a cold Leopardstown December day would close the chapter on his time in racing.

Beaten by a combined total of 318-plus lengths on the three occasions he finished, he pulled up on his hurdling swansong. But as the shimmer of the New Year sparked with promise on the horizon, so too did the dawn of Arctic Soul’s bright future.

The gelding, who passed away in 2022, would become one of the world’s top event horses, with 2018 world team gold as well as ninth place individually at the 2015 European Championships on his senior championship record.

“He’s the most amazing athlete,” says rider Gemma Tattersall (now Stevens), speaking in 2021. “He’s a super jumper and he can gallop as the day is long. He just keeps going. He’s obviously very fast, courageous and brave across country, and he also has the ability to be careful and clever, which for a big horse is really amazing.”

Gemma adds that he finds the dressage and showjumping difficult, explaining it took her a while to build the trust he needed to feel confident in high-atmosphere arenas.

“Once we had that, he really started to understand that he could still perform in those stressful situations,” she says.

The pair’s five-star record cements them among the most consistent sporting greats. They have been in the top seven at Badminton and Burghley on five occasions, including two thirds. Yet it is “Spike’s” versatility to cross any sort of country that sets him apart.

“There’s not a course in the world that doesn’t suit him,” she adds, likening him to her Bicton CCI5* winner Chilli Knight in that way.

“I prefer going around the big tracks like Badminton and Burghley with him, but you could take him around a twisty, woody track and he’d still make the time. Twisty, big, galloping – there is no track too big or difficult or tricky for him.”

The tough Presenting son Glenfly won hearts across the world with his gutsy Tokyo Olympic cross-country performance with Brazil’s Marcelo Tosi.

The gelding, formerly trained by Philip Hobbs and Christopher Kellett, didn’t trouble the judge on any of his nine starts under Rules. “Soon lost good place, ridden and labouring in rear sixth, tailed off and pulled up 11th,” observe his final race notes from Towcester.

In the years since, the now-eventer has won the Brazilian national championships three times, represented his country at the 2018 World Equestrian Games (WEG) and the Tokyo Olympics. A lost shoe across country, resulting in a sore foot, prevented the pair’s completion. But that cross-country round will live long in the memory and franks his name among the most recent additions to the illustrious role-call of former racehorses to have competed under those iconic five rings.

This is a list that includes the likes of the late Over To You, the most capped British event horse of all time, who showed little promise in training with Tom Tate, so was sent to Doncaster Sales, where he failed the vet. “Jack” helped Britain to seven team podium places, including two Olympic silvers, and also secured individual world silver at WEG 2002.

Olympic and double WEG gold medallist Ready Teddy, ridden by Blyth Tait, is another in that club. The Brilliant Invader son was registered as Striking Back, but never made it to the racecourse.

Stunning, Moonfleet and Ensign are among a handful of other eventing household names of their time to progress from track to championships.

Thoroughbreds – the first choice for Ian Stark

Thoroughbreds will always be the pick for eventing legend Ian Stark, who has feet in both the eventing and racing worlds.

“I’m very much a thoroughbred man. Out of choice, I would always go for them,” he says. “They are tough, they have a conscience, they are fairly careful and self-preserving and they have amazing temperaments – they don’t all jump well, but if they move and they jump, they are so quick and so sharp in their reactions.”

His 1999 Badminton and European team champion ride Jaybee ran on the Flat as a young horse, before switching. The racecourse was also Plan A for multiple medal-winners Arakai (pictured, below) and Glenburnie.

Arakai fell off a lorry ramp arriving at the sales as a young horse and went through the ring with his legs bandaged. Racing folk “didn’t want him” and he eventually found his way to Ian, bought for him by Lord and Lady Vestey.

“He was one of the nicest and easiest to ride across country I ever had,” Ian recalls.

Glenburnie, bred with Cheltenham in mind, was hunted by owner Rosi Maitland-Carew, who sent the “quite naughty” Precipice Wood son to Ian for some education.

“He came to me to be schooled and hunted. They never got him back when I realised how good he was!” adds Ian, recalling jumping five-bar metal gates on him as a four-year-old.

Ian was allowed to use Nicky Henderson’s precious grass gallops, and remembers Nicky driving alongside the horse in the car, clocking his speed.

“Nicky said, ‘Why are you eventing him?’” Ian says. “I think he would have been a Gold Cup horse. He was fantastic, I’ve never ridden anything that could recover like he could at a three-day.”

A thoroughbred who “made a lot of dreams come true”

“For me, the thoroughbred is the king of all breeds,” says US eventer Boyd Martin. “The heart, the athleticism and the stamina the thoroughbred has is something that is hard to find in other breeds.”

The tale of Boyd’s 2010 WEG ride, Neville Bardos, is well documented. The Australian-bred gelding raced as a three-year-old under the name of Hurtle and was bought by Boyd for $800 AUS. Boyd formed a strong bond with the tough gelding, climbing up through the levels. Then in 2011, a devastating barn fire hit. Neville was one of five horses to survive, recovering from burns and smoke inhalation to compete at Burghley three months later. The pair were one of only 10 combinations to finish inside the time.

“Neville is medium-talented, in all fairness,” says Boyd. “The part that makes him unbelievable is his heart.”

Blackfoot Mystery, Boyd’s Rio 2016 Olympic ride, also started life on the track, running three times before finding his way to the Thoroughbred Rehab Center in California. Lisa Peecock adopted him, starting his eventing career, before he moved to Kelly Prather and later Boyd.

Boyd remembers Rio as a “real fairytale”.

“‘Big Red’ just went beyond himself – he gave me everything he had to give,” he says. “The horse made a lot of dreams come true.”

A thoroughbred who “found friends everywhere”

Heelan Tompkins’ extraordinary journey with pint-sized eventer Glengarrick – from Pony Club to top-10 at the Olympics – tells like the plot to a novel.

The 15.2hh black horse raced in New Zealand, but was retired owing to epistaxis (nosebleeds). Carla Jimmerson took him to Pony Club, riding on the same team as Heelan. When the chance arose for Heelan to buy Glengarrick, she snapped him up – despite the fact that he was recovering from a tendon injury.

The pair were shortlisted for the Sydney Olympics and travelled the world, finishing 17th at Badminton 2003 and seventh on their senior championship debut at the 2004 Athens Games.

“Even though he’d done a tendon and bled when I got him, he never bled again nor took an unsound step. He was a really solid little horse,” she remembers.

“I guess among what made him unique was he had this amazing quiet temperament. He just found friends everywhere.”

In 2006, when “Nugget” was 20, Heelan received a call asking if they would like to compete at Aachen WEG. They finished seventh individually and were joint winners of the “best cross-country horse in the world” prize.

But their rollercoaster journey was not over. The federation would not pay to fly Nugget home, so Heelan had to return without him.

“I got a phone call in 2007, just before Christmas, from someone who had just loved Glengarrick,” she says, explaining the horse was in the UK until she could raise enough for his flight. “He said, ‘I can’t have this – I’m sending him home, he’ll be back by Christmas.’”

Sure enough, Nugget returned home to an emotional reunion. And the little horse who had taken her across the world came full circle, enjoying Pony Club once again with her niece, Kirsty Parsons, and living to the grand age of 29.

A former point-to-pointer with “an aptitude for piaffe”

Elite eventing undoubtedly has the strongest link to the track. But it cannot claim all the glory.

It was a former point-to-pointer – advertised in Horse & Hound as “bold cross-country, no dressage” – who gave Britain its first-ever top-10 Olympic dressage result at the 1984 Games.

That horse was Wily Trout, a seven-eighths thoroughbred ridden by Chris Bartle. Chris had recently finished his stint as an amateur jockey, returning to his mother’s riding school to make a go of eventing and spotted the advert in the magazine.

“He was within my price range and I didn’t have much money to spend at all. I think I paid £700 altogether, for two instalments,” Chris recalls, adding that Wily Trout had been alternating between pointing and eventing when he found him.

“It was October and he was a shaggy dog when I picked him up. The moment I clipped him and saw what an intelligent, bold, lovely eye and head he had I fell for him there and then.”

The pair competed up to advanced and were preparing for Burghley when Wily Trout sustained a leg injury. It was in the process of bringing him back into work, following the horse’s recovery, that Chris discovered Wily Trout’s other talents.

“I had an amazing trainer at the time, Hans von Blixen-Finecke, who won the gold medal at the Helsinki Olympics in eventing,” he says. “We started teaching Wily Trout flying changes, and he seemed to have an aptitude for piaffe. It was just interesting and fun, with Hans’ experience and help, to train a horse towards grand prix.”

The rest is history. The pair would compete at three championships in all, adding the 1985 Europeans, where they finished fourth, and 1986 worlds to their record.

“The key to that horse is that he was so bold – he was a workaholic,” said Chris, adding that the horse’s “runaway” nature when he first arrived was never owing to stupidity or panic, but a pure desire to go forwards.

“That’s why eventually he found piaffe and one-time changes fun. He used to squeal at the beginning of the one-time changes and he would skip across the diagonal,” he recalls.

“Back in Los Angeles in 1984, sometimes he would make a mistake at the end of the 15 one-times [in training] because he ran out of room. So I actually took him down the back straight in Santa Anita [racetrack] the days before the grand prix and did 101 one-time changes just for fun. Then I had confidence that we could do 15 in the arena.”

The cream rises to the top, so the saying goes. For these horses, fate would have it that the cream turned out to be in a different jug. How lucky we are to witness what they can achieve.

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