Great Britain is living in a golden age for Equestrian Eventing, with the GB Team successfully defending their Olympic title in Paris. In 1952, hopes were also high on Exmoor for the British Three Day Eventing Team at the Helsinki Olympics. Captain Tony Collings’s Porlock Riding School was their training base and Allerford blacksmith Freddie Kent was the team’s official farrier.
In her autobiography, ‘Memories of Selworthy and West Somerset’, Ciceley Cooper the Allerford schoolmistress described the team’s horses at the Easter Gymkhana at Newbridge, just outside Porlock. “Speculation was, I thought, the surest and best performer of the Olympic team…to say that Speculation glistened, his creamy white coat flashing in the sunshine, would scarcely be to do him justice.”
The 1982 edition of the Exmoor Review has a profile of the remarkable blacksmith farrier Freddie Kent. He was unable to go to Helsinki but “he shod all the horses before they went, and still proudly tells you that they all returned wearing the shoes made by Kent of Porlock.”
The Guards Magazine, Winter 1952, gives an account of the contest. The dressage was “accomplished satisfactorily” but the cross country course was “fairly formidable”. Reg Hindley on Speculation “had just one mishap at the most awkward fence on the course”. Bertie Hill on Stella “as usual never put a foot wrong”. But disaster struck for Major Rook when “suddenly between the last two fences Starlight staggered and crashed to the ground, having put his foot into an almost hidden field drain.” Unable to complete the course, the team was disqualified. Only six of the nineteen teams finished the competition.
Four years later, at the Stockholm Olympics, Major Laurence Rook and Bertie Hill rode again, winning the team gold, and Bertie Hill won the individual gold. Bertie Hill’s associations with Exmoor continued when in the early 1960’s he established a riding school at Rapscott, near South Molton.
Graeme Horn, Exmoor Society Archivist
