Rebecca O’Rourke feared her Highland pony Humphrey was heading for the big stable in the sky... until he found a new lease of life. Ruth Addicott has the story, straight from the horse’s mouth

WHEN Humphrey of Combebank, a 26-year-old dark bay highland pony, lost all interest in life, his owner Rebecca O’Rourke feared the worst and moved him to a yard where he could comfortably end his days.

But Humphrey was a dark horse, had other ideas and went on to make a comeback fit for equine history.

Rebecca, from Middlesbrough, started riding at the age of four. As a teenager she stopped riding, but decided to take it up again after a severe asthma attack when she was 30. “I've had asthma all my life,” she says. “As a child, I was told to pull myself together and stop making a fuss, but when it came back as a reaction to having flu, it was severe.”

With her lung function critically poor, she was kept in hospital for nearly two weeks and realised one of the things she missed most in life was riding. “I lost so much fitness, I needed something to improve my health,” she says.

Living in London, Rebecca could barely afford to ride, let alone have her own pony. It wasn’t until she moved to Teesside in 1992 to work at the University of Leeds, that it became a possibility and she was introduced to Humphrey. “He came as a very thuggish three-year-old and was adorable,” she says.

There was one serious drawback, though. Although Humphrey had a gentle nature and was happy to be groomed and have his pack on, he would do anything but have a rider on his back.

“I watched the kind lady who got him for me have a dreadful fall just before she went off on an anniversary trip to the Maldives. She went off with a huge haematoma at the base of her spine from landing on her bottom after he’d launched her,” Rebecca recalls. “But he came right; once he’d got it into his head, he was fine.”

Humphrey not only had a big personality, but a very Highland trait and would get impatient if he didn’t understand what he was being asked to do. Then once he twigged, he would do it over and over again.

“There’s a move in riding called ‘rein-back’ where you get the horse to go backwards and he couldn’t get that for a long time,” says Rebecca. “He would stamp his foot and get very cross, then once he realised you wanted him to go backwards, you couldn’t get him to go forwards and he’d be going around the arena backwards looking very pleased with himself. Then, if he wanted to go right and I wanted to go left, we could be there 45 minutes arguing, but if you gave him a third way and asked him to go straight ahead, he’d go straight ahead.”

Rebecca recalls the first time she took him on a pleasure ride across the North York Moors. He was so excitable, it took 15 miles and five hours before he settled down.

“We stopped for lunch in a village which I won’t name because I’ve never been back since,” she says. “He pulled down a fence, he pulled over a sign, he pulled over a bench and dug up the green and it took three people to hold him down to enable me to get off and go to the loo and get back on him. His attitude was ‘What are we hanging about for? Come on!’”

Despite his moments, Humphrey has never put her life in danger, says Rebecca. She has only fallen off him three times – once when a jogger sprung out of a hedge, another time when they were doing Mounted Games at Christmas. “Having spent six months getting him to trot quietly in a straight line, he was suddenly asked to gallop hell for leather which he did with such enthusiasm he went forwards and I went backwards,” she says.

Humphrey’s biggest quirk is he likes his routine and it is this that almost caused his downfall in 2016 when the yard where he had been living for 25 years had a change of ownership. With a new routine and new ponies coming in, Humphrey couldn’t adjust.

“He’d been diagnosed with Cushings disease, his brother died and he was quite depressed because they were close,” says Rebecca. “His teeth were going, his coat wasn’t gleaming or shiny. It was as if all his years caught up with him overnight. He seemed to lose interest in life. He was very, very thin and he didn’t look as though he was going to last.”

Rebecca considered moving him to a new yard, but as he suffered from claustrophobia and was used to living out, there were few options available. She also feared that moving him could give him a heart attack. “I didn’t think he would see the year out, which was very hard to accept.”

Rebecca also knew that if Humphrey stayed where he was, he would deteriorate further, so when Claire Robinson, BHS Cleveland welfare officer and owner of Equi Teach, offered to take him in, Rebecca felt she had nothing to lose. Along with his friend, Humphrey moved to his new home in May last year and within days Rebecca noticed a change in his mood. It not only suited him, but he was curious about all the other ponies sticking their heads over to say hello.

By the end of summer, Humphrey had a new lease of life and was cantering the whole length of the field. “His coat was glossy, his eyes were bright, he was interested in what was going on around him, he was absolutely full of the joys of life,” says Rebecca. “When the farrier came to do his feet, he said, ‘Where’s Humphrey?’ I said, ‘He’s there!’ He didn’t recognise him.”

Even the dentist who came to do Humphrey’s six month check up had never expected to be called back.

To cement his comeback, Humphrey won the Veteran Happy Hacker trophy with the Highland Pony Enthusiasts Club for the third time.

Now settled with his new best friends, rescue ponies Hobbit and Mole, Humphrey helps the weekly Riding for the Disabled Group and has also turned his hoof to helping less confident riders, including Rebecca’s niece’s two-year-old son.

“He connects with children and takes his job very seriously,” says Rebecca. “He is very endearing, very kind. People just fall in love with him.”

  • Humphrey is based at Robinsons Equi Teach at Tunstall Farm, Tunstall Lane, Middlesbrough, TS7 ONU (which does lessons for both able and disabled riders)

W: robinsonsequiteach.co.uk