Harvey Smith's Incredible Career

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The Incredible Career Of Harvey Smith The 29th of December, 1938, saw the birth of one of the successful, and controversial, British showjumpers. Born into a working-class family in West Riding of Yorkshire, Harvey first found his love of riding thanks to the local milk pony and he never looked back. As with success, controversy was never far away from the career of Harvey Smith. In 1971, for instance, he was disciplined for giving a “V” for victory sign (although it appears the judges took it in an entirely different way). An appeal saw the disciplinary action overturned, and the near perfect round which saw him win the British Show Jumping Derby, for the second consecutive year, remained unblemished. To the Olympics! Harvey Smith also …show more content…

By anybody's standards, that kind of medal haul is pretty impressive for a 34-year career. Despite his incredible haul of medals and titles, Harvey Smith answered that eternal question that all retirees are eventually asked, “do you miss it?”, with typical Yorkshire bluntness: “Would you miss ironing?”. If winning medals didn’t occupy enough of his time, Harvey also somehow found the time to take part in professional wrestling during the 1970s and also commentate on showjumping events for the BBC at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. To add to his achievements, Smith was honoured in 1989 for being the first man to have jumped in 100 Volvo World Cup Qualifying Rounds. Oh, and yes, you read that correctly - Harvey Smith was, for a short time in the 1970s, a professional wrestler. Appearing on the WoS (World of Sport) wrestling programme as Tally-Ho Kaye (otherwise known as Peter Kaye), Smith once fought against the professional wrestler known as Bobby Bold

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