Great Yorkshire Show

Angie and Bradley's home

Angie Bell and her horse Bradley live on a farm at Kirkby Overblow, near Harrogate. Surrounded by nature and with beautiful views of the Vale of York and the Wharfe Valley, it’s perhaps the perfect place to prepare for the show jumping event at the Great Yorkshire Show.

'Just a trim please!'

Angie says Bradley, is a real character: “He loves to put his head on your shoulder and have a little cuddle. When you put him out in the field he runs round like a loony, bucking and he has a strange squeal. When he’s ready to come in he gallops round screaming.”

Angie and Bradley approach a jump.

Bradley is in good form at the moment. He had a third and a sixth at the Bramham International Horse Trials this year. Angie is no stranger to success either. She’s competed at the Great Yorkshire Show every year for the last 20 years. She says, “I’ve had years when it’s gone fantastic and others where I’ve fallen off at the water jump. I’ve been third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth, but never won.”

Bradley's practice area

At 16.3 hands (that’s five feet, five inches from the ground to the base of his neck) Bradley is a big horse. Angie says if he’s really going for it, she can struggle to hold him: “If that happens, I just speak to him nicely and keep saying whoa! But normally he’s very well-mannered and when I ask him to slow down he’s normally gentleman enough to do so.”

Angie strokes Bradley after a successful practice.

With Angie’s previous successes at the Great Yorkshire Show there’s only one position, first place, which eludes her. “I’d love to win at the Great Yorkshire this year,” she says, “We’ll try, he’s fast enough, if the course suits him he stands a good chance.”