One of the consequences of working with horses is that life is busy.
Debby Ewing, nee Sly, is always busy! She has interchanged eventing, and now racing, with writing, resulting in not a minute of the day being wasted alongside her horses and no written words being wasted in the newspaper articles she writes.
‘I mainly bought youngsters to produce to Novice or Intermediate level eventing – I was never very good at giving up on any horse, or at selling them, which was meant to happen,’ reflects Debby.
And nowadays?
‘These days, I only compete in dressage, when I get the chance, but I train and ride my own racehorse. Earlier this year, I took out my full trainer’s license in Ireland after deciding that, although we only ever will and only ever have, train one or two horses at a time, a full license gives more scope to give a horse a gentler introduction to racing and more scope to play to each horse’s particular strengths.’
Combining both her knowledge of eventing and racing, Debby is passionate about safeguarding racehorses. By scaling down on the number of horses at home ahead of a planned move back to England has allowed her to scale up her writing and lobbying. ‘We need to ensure better whole life scenarios for thoroughbreds – they are bred for the racing industry and we have responsibility for their ‘after life’ by providing a safe pathway from the industry (at all life stages and premises) to appropriate re-trainers and suitable homes.’
‘We also need to measure and monitor wastage – ideally through annual audits of all thoroughbred premises, which would give us virtually real-time statistics on wastage at all life stages. Wastage is at the heart of most welfare concerns therefore we are not properly addressing welfare if we do not address wastage! And in many cases, we need to look at how we train racehorses in order to minimise injury and maximise potential. It is not rocket science – an equine athlete needs to have his balance, strength, symmetry and suppleness maintained (and ideally improved) throughout his training regime. The majority of injuries are the result of accumulative micro-damage or in other words Repetitive Strain Injury. It’s not too hard to work out that if we want to reduce injury risk and maximise performance potential, we have to bring far more to the training table than cantering and galloping.
Having grown up in Essex and Sussex, Debby has split her time between England and Ireland. She’s lived in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and West Cork, and now lives in County Wexford, Ireland. She is married to Martin Ewing and they have a ‘rescued hairy lurcher’ called Quiva. To capture a glimpse of Debby training, breaking and re-training any equine from Connemara ponies to Thoroughbreds look on her Instagram handle Taulaght Horses.
Did you have a horsey childhood? Not as horsey as I would have liked. I was born horse-mad into a non-horsey family. When I was four, my mum and dad went out to buy me a rocking horse and were so shocked by the price, they came back with a young donkey. Dad’s only experience of horses was his father’s time as a cavalry man so the donkey was fed like an army horse – oats and maize! None of us could understand why it kept bucking us off when we tried to get on it. Beyond that, it was a case of begging and borrowing rides on anything until I finally got a pony, Peanuts, on loan when I was about thirteen. After that, I didn’t get a horse until I was twenty-six.
How did you glean an interest in racing? My first horse was an ex-racehorse and he was quite tricky so researching his history was my first real interest in racing, beyond going to Cheltenham to watch.
How did this interest develop into training? My first love was eventing, although Martin had always had a strong interest in National Hunt racing. Whilst I was eventing, we were sometimes sent racehorses to either rehab or help with their jumping. Then, a near fatal fall whilst eventing led me to do a bit of soul searching. It’s always harder for those who have to watch and my family no longer enjoyed watching me set off out of the start box. So having already bought an ex-racehorse (Bid for Tools) that I had planned to retrain to event, we decided to try point-to-pointing him, and it went from there.
What have been your roles in racing? Point-to-point handler, pre-trainer, re-trainer, rehab and now fully licensed with, hopefully, a nice horse to run in bumpers next year.
5 Star Eventer Stormhill Kossack
Best horses owned so far: Our most well-known horses would be Stormhill Kossack, who was a five-star event horse, and Family Business and Thompsons Wood were our best point-to-pointers and hunter chasers.
Favourite racecourses between the flags: Eyton on Severn and Curraghmore (when it’s not too wet!) in Ireland.
Favourite racecourses under Rules: Chepstow and Thurles.
Favourite meeting: Cheltenham Countryside Race Day – I just love the atmosphere.
How did your background in eventing help you train racehorses? Eventing gave me an understanding of the need to retain and improve the balance, symmetry, strength and suppleness of every horse, and that it is the rider’s job to be the horse’s physical therapist. By that, I mean the rider influences how well or badly a horse is able to use himself. Riders need to be good enough and consistent enough to ensure they are influencing the horse positively not negatively – whatever that horse’s job is.
What do you love about Thoroughbreds? Their quality, sharpness, intelligence and trainability.
Favourite racehorse: Family Business was a firm favourite as he was the most genuine, but he was also an unlucky horse. He gave me my first point-to-point win. Yet, his back story was of falling and hanging left as a racehorse in his previous life, and then coming to us to rehab after fracturing his pelvis. The hope was simply that he would become sound enough to have an active life but he went point-to-pointing again and proved his many doubters wrong by winning the 3m 5f hunter chase at Chepstow with an exhibition of front-running jumping.
Jockey Julian Pitchard, Family Business and a delighted Debby after that Chepstow
hunter chase victory - their own 'Welsh National' win
Is there a horse you would have loved to have trained? It’s a privilege to be sent any horse to train – that has always been my view.
What has been your most memorable day racing? Well, it was two days racing within a month of each other. Thompsons Wood won a hunter chase (our first ever runner in one) at Huntingdon for a wonderful syndicate of friends and then Family Business won his hunter chase at Chepstow.
Favourite jockey: Bryony Frost – she just seems to become part of any horse she sits on. And prior to that, Julian Pritchard for his horsemanship and his willingness and ability to adapt to how we wanted our horses ridden and jumped.
Who is your racing hero? I don’t have a racing hero as such, but my hero is my husband Martin, for helping me do what I love.
Within racing, what improvements should be implemented? Aside from everything mentioned earlier – simple improvements such as a tack regulations regarding noseband tightness, and bits. I hate seeing horses ridden in Ring (Chifney ring or Dexter bits), they are not even allowed in other equestrian sports. They are so often used because a horse hangs – a horse hangs because something is wrong somewhere in his body – not in his mouth!
The introduction of a practice fence as in France. Even the lowliest hunter trial offers a practice fence; its purpose is to warm the horse up physically and mentally. It defies reason that racehorses should not be give this opportunity. I still find myself shouting at the TV, ‘Let them jump the fecking thing instead of showing it to them!’
And the whip! When will we stop tiptoeing around the issue? We say that its padded and doesn’t hurt the horse, yet we think we need to use it to force maximum effort. In these more enlightened times, the whip is not allowed to be used like that in any other equestrian discipline, not even eventing or in a showjumping jump off when the rider is also trying to get maximum effort from the horse. And aside from that, it seems neither jockey’s nor stewards can count. So, let’s just ban its use other than on the shoulder in front of a fence if needed.
Overall, how secure is the future of racing? I think if we truly commit to ensuring and demonstrating better whole life scenarios for the horses that we breed by using evidence-based management and training protocols. For example, using more turn out, forage and social interaction and not the boast about five-star hotels. Plus, if we address wastage, particularly if overbreeding and some aspects of our training regimes are adding to this, and get rid of the whip, then we have nothing to fear.
I still feel more could be done to increase the appeal of racing to a wider audience. We should champion the everyday runners and riders by showing far more behind the scenes footage of your average horses, owners, jockeys and trainers. People that are easy to relate to, where you can see the passion, commitment and hard work that goes on in yards everyday up and down the country. Where the best facilities aren’t always available but the horses are still successfully managed and trained in, perhaps, a more natural way. I don’t think that always concentrating on the big names, the big yards and the wealthy owners is anything like as appealing as telling the stories of the those who put heart and soul into racing, more for the love of the horse than for any hope of making much money out of them.
The biggest challenge for point-to-pointing, I suspect, is financial and it’s harder to know how to overcome that. I do believe it would help enormously if licensed trainers weren’t allowed to run horses in point-to-points or hunter chases. There is no restriction on licensed trainers at all in Irish point-to-points and that is pretty soul destroying for the small point-to-point handler.
A quick outline of your writing career: I had a lucky start by being bold enough to walk onto the trade stand of What’s New in Farming at the Royal Show, having just left Harper Adams college, and asked for a job. They took me on as Production Editor but discovered I was quite good at writing articles so let me loose with writing as well as page layouts, sub-editing etc. It was a London-based job, which was never going to sit well with me.
I moved from there to Editor of Pony Club Magazine, and then went freelance, writing for Eventing and Your Horse magazines. I went to a publisher with the idea of writing a book about Mary King (then Thomson) just as she was making a name for herself, got the go ahead and wrote Mary Thomson’s Eventing Year. As luck would have it, the book followed the year she won Badminton and went to the Barcelona Olympics. From that start, I wrote more books for David & Charles, and other publishers such as Anness Publishing and Studio Cactus. I’ve written around fourteen in all, I guess.
Do you have any advice for wannabe writers? Just have a go! Tell it as you would to a friend.
Favourite meal: Fish and chips.
Favourite drink: Rum and coke.
Favourite snack: Anything chocolate.
Favourite holiday destination: Anywhere on a yacht that is not too hot.
Favourite book: The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom.
Favourite film: Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Favourite TV program: Blue Lights.
Favourite music: Irish Country music.
Other hobbies/interests: My first school report said ‘It’s lovely to see a child so passionate about horses but Debby really needs to broaden her interests’. I don’t think I ever did, but that passion has allowed me to live a life that I love.
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