Helen West
ALL IS QUIET at Smiths Farm on this sleepy Saturday afternoon. Nobody is inside the thatched cream-walled cottage. No vehicles on the narrow, high-hedged road that lead to this characterful home break the silence. The yard below the house is empty. But then the stillness is broken by the sound of a horse’s hooves and Helen West, British Eventing (BE)’s relatively new CEO, all smiles and apologies for momentarily being away from home, appears on the back of a compact bay. She has, she explains, just been for a rare hack. Sometimes weeks go by before she can climb into former eventer Eebay’s saddle.
“The back of a horse is my happy place,” admits Helen. “I have to tell myself to make time for it because it helps me.”
She means that traversing the leafy lanes, tracks, fields and woods in this undulating part of Devon, just a stone’s throw from the pebbly beach
