WEST Sussex is an idyllic place for Derry show jumper David Simpson (32) and his wife, British show jumper Louise (née Pavitt), to bring up their three children while continuing to compete at the highest level of the sport both in Britain and mainland Europe.

When home, Simpson plays football on a Monday, where the team is made up of fellow show jumpers and West Sussex residents Michael Duffy, Trevor Breen, Graham Gillespie and Roger McCrea, among others; Hickstead, his “home from home”, is a few miles down the road; William Funnell’s Billy Stud is a few miles away where he does a lot of business, and the children’s school is a few hundred yards from the front gate of Bridgehill Farm, David and Louise’s home.

“It is an incredible area for the equestrian world. It is enjoyable as well, because it can be hard to have friends away from the shows. So with many of us in same area, you can have a really nice life,” says Simpson.

West Sussex is about two hours from the start of the Eurotunnel, which takes you directly to France in under an hour, and has been the perfect base for David, and many other Irish athletes, for the last 13 years. But Britain’s exit from the European Union is causing all kinds of hassle. So it naturally comes up with we speak this week.

Asked how Brexit is affecting the horse industry and movement of competition horses, Simpson said: “It is really really really tough. The biggest problem is nobody knows what to do, there are no clear cut rules. I have been chatting to some of the big shippers, the guys who ship horses for a living, and they still don’t really know what the right answer is.

“My feeling is in the next few months it will level out. But, and I don’t want to sound too critical, but the British Federation need to make a move on it, we are travelling for sport, we need our horses to arrive and their destination in top condition, we are talking about high-level sports animals. The sporting bodies need to make sure there are certain rules whether travelling for food consumption or for sport.

“At the moment, they are making it difficult to compete from this country. It is quite sad because we love our base in West Sussex but if this continues, we are definitely going to have to think about a European base,” he commented frankly on the Brexit situation.

New beginnings

Simpson bought Bridgehill Farm after spending almost nine years on the grounds of Hickstead, first working for Shane Breen and then renting a yard with Louise. What was meant to be just a winter working for the Breen team, turned into seven years.

Explaining how he ended up in the sport, David said: “Mum [Pat] and dad [Edmund] were big into hunting, so I kind of got into it through that. We used to go to Dublin every year, and I loved show jumping but had no real access to it. One day out hunting, Peter Smyth spoke to Dad about me coming to ride a pony. I started riding 12.2s for Peter and ended up training with Peter all through ponies and into horses.”

When he was at a crossroads, he met Shane Breen. “A lot of my friends were going to America but I didn’t really want to land over not knowing anyone. I was at the last show of the year of the year in Towerlands and I got chatting to Shane. Martin Duffy had just left and he asked would I go to him for the winter and he would find a nice job for me in America afterwards.

“That was November 2007 and seven years later I was still there! I loved working for Shane. Hickstead became a second home, the Bunn family very welcoming, and I got a lot of really good opportunities riding in the ring, it was fantastic.

“One thing I learned there was that hard work always pays off, and that was something I always admired about Shane. We were crazy busy at start, it wasn’t as fancy as it is now; we were riding 15 or 16 horses a day. Shane was there working every bit as hard as you so you never got sick of it.”

After seven years and the arrival of their first child, David and Louise, who had been working for the Brendon Stud, branched out on their own and rented Sue Bunn’s 15-box yard on the other side of Hickstead before eventually purchasing their own place 18 months later.

Louise is a big name in England, having won numerous individual and team medals on ponies and juniors. While at Brendon Stud she produced Don VHP Z, who went on to become one of the best horses in the world under Dutchman Harrie Smolders, until he was eight. Together they won the six-year-old championship at HOYS and finished fourth in the five-star King George V Cup at Hickstead in 2012. She won the Windsor Grand Prix in 2012, as well as multiple international wins around the world.

The 40-acre Bridgehill Farm is a peaceful oasis for the production of international standard sport horses. “We try to compete to high level as possible. At the end of the day we are predominately sales people. Whenever a horse is good enough, we will always be sellers. We have 28 horses in work and we both have and continue to compete at some of the best shows in the world. The more and more established we got, we own more horses ourselves, but we still a few very good owners.”

Simpson has also branched into breeding in recent years, from four top-class mares who he competed in the past, using two young stallions that he owns, as well as more established stallions. “We have two very exciting six year-old stallions, one by Bemako de Muze and one by Toulan, and we are using them on four very good Grade A mares that I have ridden in the past.

“We are taking two embryos and using one with the young stallion and one from established stallion. So we have six to eight foals a year using four mares, the oldest is three now. They grow up at Glebe Farm on the other side of Sussex and will come to us then.

“Obviously with myself and Louise, we need a constant stream of horses to keep us going in the sport, so we will probably do it half and half going forward, breed half and buy half.”

Special horses

One of those breeding mares in Cruise With Me, the horse that kick-started David’s career, took him to underage European Championships in 2006 and 2008, and his senior Nations Cup debut in Zagreb in 2008. On the national circuit, they won the Grand Prix at the Northern Indoor Championships in Eglinton, among other top results.

“She was very very good. She gave me my first proper start in horses from juniors to young riders and senior level. I did my first Nations Cup with her and rode in my international Grand Prix with her. To be honest, I probably didn’t really appreciate her enough… coming off ponies, I didn’t realise what I had and probably didn’t appreciate it. Looking back, she was amazing,” Simpson says of the traditionally-bred Cruising mare who was bred in Co Fermanagh by Creighton Construction.

Also breeding at Bridgehill Farm is Chessy 17, the mare who brought David to one of his best victories at Hickstead, winning the Queen Elizabeth II Cup for the first time in 2016.

“She was a really cool mare. It’s a funny story actually, I found her in Portugal when she was 11 and I bought her. I had her for six months before selling her. The girl then went back to University, and I got her back to ride, that is when she won the Queen Elizabeth and jumped on the Nations Cup team in Al Ain. She did a lot of very cool things, then she was sold again and now she is back for breeding.”

Simpson won the Queen Elizabeth II Cup for the second time in 2019 with Gentleman VH Veldhof, a horse he only had for a brief period but who he made an impact with. In fact, 2019 was a standout year for the Derry man, crowned by victory in the 1.60m Grand Prix at Horse of the Year Show.

“He was an incredible horse. He was 13 when he came to me from a Czech family; I train their daughters. He came for selling and we clicked immediately. After a month of having him he won the Queen Elizabeth, a month after that he was double clear in the Nations Cup at Gijon and then won the Grand Prix at HOYS. He was a really good horse to have and he came at a nice period for Foudre’s career, because he was learning the ropes and could go to those nice shows.”

The aforementioned Foudre F is the current superstar at DLS Showjumping, the business name for David and Louise’s enterprise. Irish show jumping fans would have seen the 11-year-old gelding on television screens last month when Simpson returned to home soil for the HSI Irish Showing Masters.

Explaining how he got the ride on the gelding, who made his team debut in Vilamoura in November, he said: “Foudre came through Shane [Breen]. I did two seasons in Dubai with Shane and Team Z7. When we went in 2019, Shane asked me would I ride him. We clicked really fast and I scrapped together enough money to buy a share in him.”

David Simpson and Foudre F at the Horse Sport Ireland Showjumping Masters in Emerald EC \ Stephen McCarthy Sportsfile

Simpson was keen to compliment HSI for running the Masters show. “It was an incredible achievement. Fair play to Michael Blake and HSI and RTÉ, it really important to get show jumping on television. As riders, we all love coming home for whatever reason. To organise that event, with the constraints of Covid, was an incredible achievement.

“Hopefully they will be able to build on it next year, and maybe run a three-day show. Ireland is a very horse-oriented country, to get it back in public viewing is incredible. It really turned out to be an important event.”

Championship goals

What is the goal for Foudre F in 2021? “This year is probably a year too early for him in terms of the Olympic Games. I really sort of set the European Championships in Riesenbeck as the aim for him. Covid-19 could still be a problem of course, and it is difficult with Brexit as well, but hopefully as the year pans out, the world will return to a slightly more normal place.

“The immediate plan is to go to Vejer [Spain] to get ready for the season coming, Covid allowing. I love to make a plan, so last year was absolutely torture for me, and this year is starting to look the same!”

David and Louise welcomed their third child last November with Albert entering the world, a little brother to Connor and Charlie, who often accompany their parents to horse shows. But it is not easy juggling the sport and small children.

“We are very lucky in our village of Coolham. The boy’s school is probably 400 yards from our gate and they have really lovely teachers there. The principal follows me and Louise in the sport, and they are very good, we can have a conversation about going to Portugal for the month, and they will give the boys a load of homework and they can come with us.

“Obviously as they get older, and their education gets more serious, that won’t be as straightforward, but for now it is good and allows us to have the boys with us. Charlie, the middle boy, is more into the horses. The eldest Conor is more into nature but we would never force it on the children.”

As the conversation comes to a close, I ask David about his favourite memory of his career so far. He doesn’t hesitate in answering. “It is probably a bit of a distant one, but winning the Puissance in Olympia with Richi Rich in 2014 was amazing. It was just when we were launching our business, it jump-started the profile of our yard and brought in a lot of clients pretty quickly, it helped established our yard quicker than we would have thought. And it was very enjoyable, the atmosphere at that show in amazing.

“The Queen Elizabeth wins and the HOYS Grand Prix were incredible too, but that one was most influential to our business I think.”

Memorable moment: David Simpson and Richi Rich clear the wall to win the Puissance at London Olympia in 2014 \ Kit Houghton/HPower