Our Nobby
THEY say the best horses find you. Jane Holderness-Roddam’s first Badminton winner almost landed in her lap – or at least her front doorstep. But it was a most inauspicious start. First impressions were of a scrappy pony in poor health with a devilish nap and a propensity for weaving.
“A farmer arrived on our doorstep with a trailer, saying, ‘Do you want to buy an ’oss?’ – which was in fact a pony,” says Jane, née Bullen, who was 14 at the time. “He was a weedy little thoroughbred with a ewe neck, lop ears and great big backside. But Mum liked the look of him and sent my sister Jennie down to Highgrove, where they had Pony Club camp, to try him out.
“He was only five and he jumped everything he was pointed at, so we bought him for £120.”
Our Nobby was nicknamed Loppy on account of his ears, which flopped “pathetically sideways”. He was not much to look at – “scruffy, scrawny, no neck” – but the girls’ mother Anne Bullen decided he could be Jane’s Pony Club pony.
“He turned out to be
