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Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
Show jumper who first succeeded at age 15 in a novice competition and joined the British team in 1958.
Eight records
The keepsakes
The luxury
Not recorded.
In conversation
Presenter asks
As a youngster, what did you want to be?
As a youngster, I I seemed to run wild a bit, you know... I don't think I'd any real ambitions.
Presenter asks
What job did you take out when you left school?
Uh when I left school I started um... In the building trade, I did a little bit of plumbing of some bricklaying... Fair lot of digger driving... and went through the building trade in general.
Presenter asks
What was your first success as a show jumper?
First success in in open competition... was uh equal first in a a novice competition at Nelson, which is just over the border in Lancashire.
Presenter asks
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Presenter
This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.
Presenter
As a youngster, what did you want to be?
Harvey Smith
Uh
Presenter
Uh
Harvey Smith
As a youngster, well
Harvey Smith
As a youngster I I seemed to run wild a bit, you know, I uh
Harvey Smith
I don't think I'd any real ambitions. As a small boy, I used to uh
Harvey Smith
go to the local farms and
Harvey Smith
Riding ponies and that type of thing, you know. Did anyone in the family have a horse?
Harvey Smith
Uh my brother
Harvey Smith
He had a a small pony, and then he he bought a horse afterwards, and I started playing about with the pony, and as he got fed up of his horse I sort of took his horse over and played about with that. And that's the way I got into riding.
Presenter
Mm-hmm.
Presenter
You began entering for local gym carnivors.
Harvey Smith
Yeah, so uh um The Bingley Show would be my first big show in nineteen forty seven, which is going back a long time.
Presenter
What job did you take out when you left school?
Harvey Smith
Uh when I left school I started um
Harvey Smith
In the building trade, I did a little bit of plumbing of some bricklaying.
Harvey Smith
Fair lot of digger driving.
Harvey Smith
and went through the building trade in general.
Presenter
What was your first success as a show jumper?
Harvey Smith
First success in in open competition.
Harvey Smith
was uh equal first in a a novice competition at Nelson, which is just over the border in Lancashire.
Presenter
Mm-hmm. How old were you then?
Harvey Smith
Uh Fifteen. Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
and your first invitation to join the British team.
Harvey Smith
Yeah.
Presenter
How I lived with
Harvey Smith
How to avoid it.
Presenter
Uh
Harvey Smith
Uh
Presenter
Uh
Harvey Smith
Uh
Harvey Smith
First invitation to join the British team was uh nineteen fifty eight.
Harvey Smith
Which was four years five years afterwards. Yes, still in your teens. Still in my teens, yeah.
Harvey Smith
Had you ever had a writing lesson?
Presenter
Uh
Harvey Smith
No.
Presenter
Uh
Harvey Smith
No, that's one thing I haven't asked.
Presenter
Do you think they would have helped you?
Harvey Smith
Well, riding lessons you would have been riding somebody else's style, whereas when you're self taught and and riding you're riding your own style.
Presenter
Your own two young sons. You aren't teaching them.
Harvey Smith
Well, I keep giving them a good uh telling off and straightening up, you know.
Presenter
Uh
Presenter
But they're taking to it, are they?
Harvey Smith
They're both riding very well. The one boy he's started doing a fair lot of competitions, and the young one just did one competition at the end of last year, and now he's starting to go.
Harvey Smith
Into competitions regular next season. How old are they? Uh, one's eight and the other one's nine. Oh, they're really starting young. Well, they're starting young, yeah.
Presenter
Now nineteen fifty-nine
Presenter
Barely out of your teens, leading show jumper of the year at Wembley. How many times have you won that title now?
Harvey Smith
To be honest with you, I couldn't tell you. It's either three or four.
Presenter
I think it's full.
Presenter
Oh, well I've been looking up the cuttings.
Presenter
Now winner of many Continental Grand Prix, Sportsman of the Year, Olympic rider. Now the Mexican Olympics were a disappointment. Do you think the altitude affected the horses?
Harvey Smith
I think it was a lot of things attributed to the uh downfall of the British team in in Mexico.
Harvey Smith
I think the horse that l let us down on the day, it wasn't uh
Harvey Smith
Nobody's fault, you know, it was one of those things it'd been asked the limits two days before, mm and often when your horse you ask a horse a limit
Presenter
Hmm.
Harvey Smith
He is. It it goes stale for three weeks or a month afterwards, which which had happened to this horse. Nobody knew it. It was just one of those unforeseen circ circumstances. But apart from that slight mishap
Presenter
Sure.
Harvey Smith
I think on the day I think we could have really walked in, you know. Because uh the round that David rode and the round that I rode afterwards, the fight had gone th I mean, we were just making up numbers. We had to go. Well, it was to his own benefit to go for fu for future experience.
Presenter
Yeah.
Harvey Smith
Uh
Presenter
Yeah.
Harvey Smith
But uh I've never gone in and ridden around.
Harvey Smith
as disappointingly in in my life as what I wrote that.
Harvey Smith
Shame. That last year I've
Presenter
How much is the horse and how much the rider? Can you...
Presenter
A a portion of percentage.
Harvey Smith
Well, you've got to work.
Harvey Smith
Together you've got to get both your minds together and and and physically together.
Harvey Smith
I should say sixty, seventy percent the rider and
Harvey Smith
thirty, forty percent their horse. But a good horse a good horse'll uh make up for a lot.
Presenter
Yeah.
Harvey Smith
Hello.
Presenter
How long is the show jumping season?
Harvey Smith
Well, it uh it's got more broken up now than it used to be. It used to be solely from uh April until October.
Harvey Smith
But now there's a few shows died out in in the summer months and there's a few crept in in the winter months, so
Harvey Smith
It it's not as solid a programme, but but yet it seems to keep you at it all the year round nearly now.
Presenter
Yes, the winter ones of course are indoor. What what are the special problems of jumping indoors?
Harvey Smith
Well, indoors your your horses have got to be much quicker. You've got to be much quicker yourself. Uh y you don't have as much time to make up uh
Harvey Smith
For your mistakes, the fences are on top of you much quicker.
Presenter
Yes.
Presenter
Our show jumping is big business now. Is that mainly due to television?
Harvey Smith
Uh
Presenter
Well, tell me.
Harvey Smith
Elevation
Harvey Smith
has uh basically helped it. I think it it really started to snowball after uh Foxhunter won the gold medal in the Olympic Games was it nineteen fifty two, fifty six?
Presenter
Yes.
Presenter
Is it big business for the rider, too?
Harvey Smith
Well, I I wouldn't say a big business, but th there's getting a lot more
Harvey Smith
people in the game, uh
Harvey Smith
Eight and ten years ago there used to be maybe four or five.
Harvey Smith
good riders about. You know, I I'm I'm talking about continental and in in England. Yes. But now there there seems to be getting twenty or thirty good riders about. When you used to go to a show
Harvey Smith
Uh and any one of five or six could win.
Presenter
Uh
Harvey Smith
Now when you go to show, anyone of thirty or forty could win.
Presenter
Yes. So the big money is is being split up more?
Harvey Smith
Or the the big money's not not going pooling into into one place.
Presenter
Mm-hmm.
Harvey Smith
The and it has, it it's made the job more competitive.
Harvey Smith
And a much
Harvey Smith
More skilled spot.
Presenter
You're one of the first advocates of a a tote service, of betting at show jumping. This has been tried now.
Presenter
Was it successful?
Harvey Smith
It's been tried, it's very successful.
Harvey Smith
When uh when you're riding in front of a a crowd with uh with betting or a tort on.
Harvey Smith
The crowd's electric. The slightest movement and and they're there with you.
Harvey Smith
Whereas uh the crowd no I don't say the bad crowds normally, the but the crowds normally aren't as quick or or as electric.
Presenter
There's not as much at stake uh at stake for them.
Harvey Smith
Yeah, that they seem as though they've got a in you know, interest in the horse.
Presenter
I'm sure it.
Do you think [riding] lessons would have helped you?
Well, riding lessons you would have been riding somebody else's style, whereas when you're self taught and and riding you're riding your own style.
Presenter asks
Now the Mexican Olympics were a disappointment. Do you think the altitude affected the horses?
I think it was a lot of things attributed to the uh downfall of the British team in in Mexico... I think the horse that l let us down on the day, it wasn't uh... Nobody's fault, you know, it was one of those things it'd been asked the limits two days before... and often when your horse you ask a horse a limit... It it goes stale for three weeks or a month afterwards, which which had happened to this horse...
Presenter asks
How much is the horse and how much the rider? Can you give a portion or percentage?
Well, you've got to work... Together you've got to get both your minds together and and and physically together. I should say sixty, seventy percent the rider and thirty, forty percent their horse. But a good horse a good horse'll uh make up for a lot.
“As a youngster, I I seemed to run wild a bit, you know... I don't think I'd any real ambitions.”
“Well, riding lessons you would have been riding somebody else's style, whereas when you're self taught and and riding you're riding your own style.”
“I've never gone in and ridden around as disappointingly in in my life as what I wrote that.”
“When you're riding in front of a a crowd with uh with betting or a tort on, the crowd's electric. The slightest movement and and they're there with you.”