Over the last year, Sam Overton and Oaks Cassanova have won some of the biggest show jumping events here in Australia and competed at the FEI Jumping World Cup Final in Omaha. Back on home soil, the success has continued, most recently with a win in the country’s richest Grand Prix class at the GDP Classic.

Queenslander Sam Overton’s rise through the elite ranks of Australian show jumping is not bad for someone who “wasn’t interested in horses at all” when he first sat in the saddle as a teenager. He says he became involved with horses through his older sister Kate, who convinced the family that Sam wanted to ride her first horse, Duke, so she could gain her next mount without having to sell him.

“The story goes that I wanted to ride Duke, and therefore we had to keep him. I wasn’t interested in horses at all. Anyway, that’s how I started riding… I first sat on a horse when I was 15,” recalls Sam.

He followed Kate to Pony Club and decided that horse riding wasn’t so bad, and it wasn’t long before he’d graduated to his next mount, another Pony Club allrounder named Rockefeller. “I’d never jumped anything, but it turned out that Rockefeller could really jump… we went to Dalby Agricultural Show a week after purchasing him and came fifth in the Junior Jump class.”

Sam says he was fortunate enough that Rockefeller would jump anything and everything he pointed him at. “He just totally looked after me… he was the ultimate beginner’s horse.”

Sam and Kate’s parents were quite keen on the sport and happy to support their children with their riding aspirations, and with David Dobson the local coach, Sam began to progress quite quickly. Over the next four years, he had several horses and stepped up from Juniors to A and B Grade level in his late teens. “I won the Junior title at the Queensland State Championship one year. I should have won the C Grade title, but I got lost… even though it was the exact same course! I’m surprised looking back at how quickly I did progress through,” he muses, adding that his approach to riding and competition at the time was very casual.

After finishing school in 1988, Sam went to university in Brisbane but continued to ride and compete on weekends. He recalls the rise of the sport in Australia at a time when the Bond Series was attracting show jumpers to events around the country, including Queensland.

In 1992, Sam met his wife, Carly, through the sport. They eventually married and started a business, focused on heavy transport sleeper-cabin air conditioning, and Sam hung up his boots for about 10 years from the late 1990s as life took its course. When their daughters were born, Sam began riding a little again – however, it wasn’t until about 10 years ago that he picked up the reins in any serious sense.

“I’ve been riding fairly consistently over the last 10 years and going absolutely as hard as I can for the last five years as the kids are older and our business, Icepack, looks after itself a little more. I just had a couple of good horses come along and became mad keen on it.”

THE ROAD TO ED

Sir Lancelot, aka Basil, was Sam’s first serious horse during this next stage of his career, and he credits the gelding with getting him restarted in the sport. He’s a horse that Sam describes as “a little crazy, very brave, but not particularly careful”.

Next came a Mini Prix horse name Point Break, who ultimately took Sam to the 2020 Queensland State Championships where he jumped the biggest course he’d ever ridden at the time.

Another horse on the team was Yirrkala Cameron, who Sam began riding as a six-year-old for Sue Knox before buying a majority share in him. “The idea was for him to be a Future Stars horse,” explains Sam. “Cameron was a brave, very strong and classical jumper. It was a fun time producing him from young horse classes to Grand Prix and placing in World Cup class.” Cameron was recently sold on and is now competing with a lovely young rider.

However, Sam had another horse coming through the ranks. In 2013, he’d bought Oaks Cassanova, out of Oaks Alto by Ego Casablanca, from the Miocevich family in Perth. He was a five-year-old who was yet to jump under saddle – and he was only 15.2 hands. He was a tricky horse, and as Sam explains he was exceptionally careful from the get-go. “It would almost be the worst thing in the world, especially when he was younger, if he touched a practice fence. He used to jump too high anyway, and if he did touch one it would just be panic stations.”

This was in contrast to Cameron, who Sam says never got offended when he’d rub a front rail. “Ed was a much, much longer process because he was so much harder, and I’d never been on a horse that would jump that big. He was spooky and crazy. He’d get really excited; he would see jumps and just charge them. He would stop five strides out from the fence because he didn’t like the look of it.”

Although sensitive, Ed did have success coming up through the grades and could always really jump. “You’d always think ‘hooley dooley’ in terms of how well he could jump a single fence. We always believed that he would eventually jump Grand Prix.

“Even jumping smaller, he would always jump clear so long as he didn’t spook, and he would always go fast enough to place. He won a lot of ribbons.” Among other early success, Ed won the six-year-old young horse class at Glen Haven Park Show and was jumping Future Stars by eight years old – although Sam says he never really did fit the mould for futurity classes.

Although the gelding was tricky, Sam took the same approach he and Carly had adopted with all of their horses. “Any horse we got, we were just trying to improve and ride the best we could, train the best we could… and that was just the process. As we kept going along, he would just get a little bit better and a little bit better, and as he kept getting better then we kept pushing forwards.”

Their persistence paid off and in 2021 Sam and Ed won the Senior title at the Queensland State Championships. “That was the biggest course I’d ever jumped; the jump-off was around 1.50m and we won with two clean rounds in a strong field.”

WORLD CUP WONDER

Sam’s first FEI-level event was the World Cup Qualifier at Caboolture in 2021, where he rode both Cameron and Ed – the latter finishing in the top 10. It was then on to the 2021 Australian Jumping Championships at the end of that year where Sam and Ed contested the Senior title and finished third. The 2022 Australian Championships were early the next year, only months later (the close proximity of the two championships coming about as a result of pandemic postponements) and Sam and Ed finished fourth. Off the back of these consistent results, they were set for an exciting 12 months ahead.

The pair took on the 2022/23 FEI World Cup Australian League, ultimately taking out the series following the final leg at the Summer Showjumping Classic in Sydney in December 2022. The series win earnt Sam and Ed the right to compete at the World Cup Final in Omaha, Nebraska in April 2023.

“Leading up to that last World Cup Qualifier, where I had to place higher than Olivia Hamood to win the series, people were asking me if I would go, and I’d just say, ‘no way’. In my mind, just doing that year of World Cups and the Australian Jumping Championships, they were all just big tracks for me… they were well and truly out of my comfort zone and the thought of going over to America and going to the World Cup Final… it seemed ridiculous!”

However, as that final event drew nearer, Sam began to warm to the idea. “I spoke to a few people, and they’d say, ‘if there’s the opportunity to do it, it’s the best thing to do because you never know when you’ll get that opportunity again’. By the time the final event arrived, I was thinking that we would go if we if we had the opportunity, and it all came off.”

And so Sam and Ed went from winning the Senior title at the Queensland State Championships to jumping at the World Cup Final in the space of two years.

“You think of Ed as a
1.60m horse… they’re
essentially riding 1.70m horses.”

EYE-OPENING EXPERIENCE

In Omaha, Sam and Ed held their own at the World Cup Final around a bigger, tougher course than they’d ever faced before and finished inside the top 30 on the first day of competition. They also competed at several big events in Canada, including a CSIO5* FEI Nations Cup class in Vancouver where they came fifth.

Sam says competing in North America was an eye-opening experience, especially when it came to the difficulty of the tracks, the quality of the horses, and the professionalism of the riders. “It was incredible just how good all those top-level competitors are, I’d never seen anything like it. The World Cup Final and the Nations Cup, all those big shows, they are professional competition riders. Here in Australia, our riders make a living in the sport, but they do lots of things besides competing – they train client’s horses, they coach, they buy and sell horses. In North America, there are many riders who make their money competing.”

The process of travelling overseas and competing a horse at these shows was a learning curve as well. “To go and take your own horse over there and manage and compete it, it’s just an incredible experience. Those five-star shows, they are all the best horses. You think of Ed as a 1.60m horse… they’re essentially riding 1.70m horses. You’d watch some of these other horses and they were not at their limit… their riders could make little mistakes and they’d still jump clear.

“Those horses are worth so much money and there are so many of them. They are owned by owners; very few of those top-level riders are on their own horses. The good horses are always bought and sold until they end up with a really good rider. You end up with the best riders on the best horses.”

Ed is undoubtedly an elite level horse, however Sam says that around those five-star tracks he felt close to his limit. “I’d psych myself up and just had to make sure I was nailing every distance to give him as much opportunity as I possibly could, whereas around courses here in Australia we’ve just got a bit up our sleeve… he’s not maxing out his scope.”

Sam says that although the courses they jumped were at the same 1.60m height classification as at home, they were generally tougher in terms of technicality. “The fences were the same height, but the distances between them were tougher, the oxers were probably just a little wider… they just take no prisoners. They set their doubles and trebles at not-so-nice distances. The tracks are just harder. But there are just some incredible horses over there, it’s so bloody cool to watch!”

KEENER THAN EVER

“Coming back home, I’m keener than ever,” says Sam, who returned to Australia in the latter part of 2023. “Jumping with Ed at the 2023 Australian Jumping Championships in November and the World Cup Qualifier that I won in Sydney at the Summer Showjumping Classic in December 2023, I could finally enter those events and they were not stressful for me. Up until that point, I felt I was always pushing the limit of what I was comfortable with.

“I’ve come back here, and I can walk these courses … and it’s a much more comfortable approach. Now I’m thinking about what is required to do well in these classes, as opposed to going, ‘hooley dooley, how hard is this going to be?’’’

Sam feels that Ed has really come into his own since returning. “He’s a better horse than what he was before we went away, he’s calmer. During the 2022 World Cup season I’d be flat out leading him around at an event, he’d be so wound up. In the warmup at the World Cup Qualifier at Sydney in December just gone, I rode six practice fences and then into the ring – previously it’d take three times as many fences before he settled. His education is better, his flatwork is better, and I’ve got a better canter.

“Seeing what matters with how the five-star horses go and how reactive they need to be, I’ve put more effort into his flatwork to get that incredible rideability since coming home. It’s so useful jumping big tracks to have a really sharp canter and be able to turn left and right and just corner onto fences and not lose the canter or drop a shoulder.”

Prior to travelling overseas, Sam says that he’d never really gone for maximum speed around a top-level jump-off course – but his experience abroad and what he learnt has given him the confidence in Ed’s ability to jump clear and fast.

“I’ve always been conservative and just worried about jumping clean and not making a mistake. That’s pretty much how I approached that 2022 World Cup season; I never really had to go fast. Seeing the horses overseas, it changes your perception of what is possible and what really matters in terms of how you ride a horse. Some of those horses over there, they will turn up on a maximum height vertical and jump it from half a stride.”

With Ed now a seasoned campaigner who has returned from his trip abroad a more settled horse, it has opened Sam’s eyes to the fact that his horse is capable of taking these courses faster, turning up shorter, and taking on fences at an angle.

“With a seasoned horse like Ed, if can you turn up to a fence and everything’s balanced, he’ll find the right distance; the fact that he hasn’t seen it until the last stride or two, it doesn’t worry him now.”

GDP CLASSIC

At February’s GDP Classic at Boneo Park, Sam and Ed took out the $60,000 Grand Prix. Sam had an absolute ball and was still buzzing from the jump-off a week later; he says it was the first time he’s really pushed for speed, and it solidified all he’d learned abroad. “It felt great for it to come off like that; there were so many in the jump-off and so many clean rounds, I felt going second last I had to go reasonably quick…. I just gave it everything, and he jumped super!”

As Sam explains, it has come back to the work he’s since put into the horse’s flatwork in recent times. “On those turns in the jump-off at the GDP Classic, he just didn’t shift… and it just makes it so easy, you can just ride a line.” He says the event itself was a thrill to compete at: “The GDP crew, they’re passionate, they’re show jumpers. They know what a good event needs… that show is just fantastic.”

Sam and Carly travelled to Victoria for the GDP Classic and will now stay through until the end of March. They contested the February Jumping Championships and plan to head to the World Cup Qualifier at Shepparton and Jumping with the Stars in March, before returning north for the Larapinta and Caboolture World Cup Qualifiers in April and June.

The Caboolture World Cup Qualifier, held as part of the Queensland Festival of Showjumping, is always an event Sam and Carly look forward to as the pair are involved in its running.

“We have the World Cup class, which is another MER opportunity, and we have a great Mini Prix and the David Overton Memorial Cup (a class previously won by Ed), which is a Future Stars class, so we have three big feature classes. We also have the Oaks Sport Horses Gala Day on the Friday, with young horse classes. We have great course designers in Gavin Chester, David Sheppard and Rebecca Henry. We aimed to run a show that’s not only great jumping but also a whole lot of fun,” explains Carly.

Sam and Carly have a long connection with Oaks Sport Horses, with Ed of course being bred by the stud’s founder and owner Alice Cameron, who runs the operation in conjunction with daughter and international rider Hilary Scott. He’s not the only horse bred by them who’s gone on to represent Australia at the elite level: Billy Raymont rode Oaks Redwood at the 2018 World Equestrian Games alongside Jamie Kermond and Yandoo Oaks Constellation, Hilary has had great success at five-star level with Oaks Milky Way, and there are countless other Oaks horses competing with success here in Australia and overseas.

“They have focused a lot on the mares,” notes Carly, explaining why she believes the stud has been so successful and has such an incredible strike rate producing elite horses like Ed. “They imported all those beautiful mares twenty years ago and really focused on the pedigrees. They were an interesting mix… they weren’t all the same type, there were big scopey ones, strong scopey ones, small ones, hot ones… a good range.

“They then used local stallions, and that was the interesting thing. I think that’s a big part of it… it’s very cool that they used so many Australian stallions instead of doing it the other way around with international frozen semen. It made everybody realise that we have good stallions here. They know the Australian stallions; they watch them jump every weekend. Alice is so educated in the pedigrees, plus the way they bring youngstock up, just so healthy and giving them every opportunity, and then with Hilary being a rider and understanding what we want… it’s pretty cool what they’ve achieved.”

So, could another Oaks horse be making his way to yet another major championship? Although Sam and Ed have two of the required three FEI MER performances – and with three World Cup Qualifiers to come on their calendar they have a good chance of securing the third – Sam is pragmatic about possible Olympic team selection. He believes that to have a serious chance he probably would have needed to remain abroad – something he felt wouldn’t have been the right choice with work, kids and several other horses in need of attention at home.

The Overtons have 10 horses in work – with Sam riding five per day and then Carly and their two daughters also keen and competitive riders. Running a business outside of the equestrian industry, at the outset it could appear that Sam is an amateur rider with a day job, but he explains that the last five years he’s been putting as much time into his own horses as any professional rider in Australia.

“Our business has got to the point where it essentially runs itself and anything we have to do can be done remotely. We’re very fortunate that the business generates enough money and allows the time to now follow our passion.”

ENDEARING ED

“Honestly, he’s like a pet dog. He treats us like that, and we treat him like that,” says Sam of his equine friend. “He’s lovely to have around and he’s very smart. The only thing he does do is he drags people around on the lead rope. But it’s just funny… he’s so calm about it when he does it!”

Ed is a people horse, and Carly says he’s very attached to Sam. “He loves Sam so much. He loves all of us, but he knew when he saw Sam at 2am in the morning in America after his big trip from Australia. It was snowing when he arrived after being quarantined… he was dropped off in the freezing cold and when he saw Sam, he just took a double take. He was like ‘holy shit, someone I know!’ He was stoked to see us!

“I think it is pretty exceptional that he’s come back to Australia and been able to perform so well,” muses Carly, explaining that while nothing went awry overseas, travel does take its toll. “To actually get through it all and come back better than ever… I think it’s a testament to his personality. He’s just grown up so much.” EQ

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