Supreme In-hand Champion at the Royal Show.
July 2008.
by Rosemary Cooper.
For the fourth time in five years a Percheron mare took the supreme heavy horse championship at the Royal Show. Supreme Champion also in 2006, Gordon Bailey’s Willingham Marie relaxed through tumultuous applause, then received her championship rosette and sash from HRH Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall. ‘This is the third time royalty has presented me with a prize,’ said Gordon Bailey. ‘Prince Charles and Camilla are a perfect lady and gentleman, putting my groom and myself totally at ease, and asking all sorts of questions about Marie and her foal.’
In the opinion of the judges, Willingham Marie was an obvious champion, and they were really looking for the reserve. This turned out to be a two-year-old bay Clydesdale colt, Martin Fountain’s Woodhouse Lucky Strike.
But the best was yet to come. ‘I’m over the moon!’ exclaimed Gordon Bailey when Willingham Marie won the Supreme In-Hand Championship, sponsored by TopSpec. Supreme Champion also in 2006, Willingham Marie is the most recent of the trinity of dapple grey Percheron mares from the Cambridgeshire village of Willingham to beat several thousand light horses and ponies to win this coveted award, and the first ever to be Supreme Champion twice.
‘’They’ll never give the championship to the same horse twice, said Gordon Bailey earlier in the day. But they did.
Five horses and ponies came forward under judges Peter Tribe, Mrs Mansfield-Parnell, and Mrs Seymour, and cheers resounded from the grandstand as Willingham Marie was pulled out first. ‘Absolutely outstanding,’ agreed the judges. ‘She must be the greatest show mare ever,’ added a delighted Gordon Bailey.
Willingham Marie stands 18.2 and is a nine-year old by Ryan’s Day Granitdier out of the famous mare Willingham Phoebe. She has been champion on each of her three outings this year, and has a foal at foot, Norman, by the 24-year-old Willingham Ernest, shown by Gordon’s groom Pat Carmen.
The run of Percheron successes in this Supreme Championship began with Owen Garner’s Hales Uni in 2004, and continued with Gordon Bailey’s Willingham Chrystal in 2005. In 2007, Gordon left Marie and Chrystal at home to bring Marie’s younger sister Willingham Etoile to the show, and won the Percheron championship, but the supreme in-hand championship passed to a pony.