FORMER racehorse Evron, and owner Stella Bunn from Malvern, has been shortlisted for a prestigious Horse of the Year award.
Stella and her ‘one-in-a-million’ horse Evron are finalists for the Retraining of Racehorses (RoR) award.
Evron retired from racing in 2022 and has retrained in a variety of disciplines including dressage, showjumping and eventing.
In less than two years, Evron has won six RoR Championships across dressage, showjumping and eventing.
And 2024 proved a special year for both thoroughbred Evron and owner Stella.
The pair claimed two class victories in showjumping at the Royal Three Counties Show and successfully qualified for the Badminton Horse Trials Grassroots Championships which take place later this year.
Stella, aged 56, achieved a lifelong dream in qualifying for the Badminton Horse Trials and thanked her husband Anthony for bringing Evron into the family in 2023.
Stella said: “Qualifying for the grassroots at Badminton was amazing. It was a childhood dream, and I have been trying for 30 years with different horses. I didn’t realise we’d qualified at the time until I saw it pop up in my emails and I was thrilled. I still can’t believe it.
“It would be lovely for Evron to win the award. His grooms from his racing days who used to look after him still visit him, and old owners still contact me, so it is nice for all those connections. He is a one-in-a-million horse who thrives on training and competing, yet he is unbelievably kind and gentle.”
An independent judging panel selected four finalists for the award.
Evron and Stella are up against Amroth Bay and Sophie Kington (Nottinghamshire), Master Wickham and Claire Lewis (Derbyshire) and Second Brook and Lesley Sayers (Neath Port Talbot).
RoR, British Horseracing’s official charity for the welfare of former racehorses, created the Horse of the Year award in 2014.
The winner will receive the iconic bronze Horse of the Year trophy, as well as the coveted winner’s rug.
The public vote is now open and closes at 5pm on Friday, January 10.
Visit: www.ror.org.uk/awards to cast your vote.
The winner will be announced at the RoR Awards at Cheltenham Racecourse on Saturday, January 25.
