A QUIRKY-natured horse who struggled to walk in a straight line in his younger years has shown that perseverance and hard work pays off as he is set to run his first race at Cheltenham racecourse next week.

Owner Verity Nicholls, from Walkhampton, purchased Dickie Bob, affectionately known as ‘Bobbles’, after seeing his ‘big head’ peering over a friends stable door when he was just a year old.

‘I went to a party, had a glass of wine in my hand and saw this great big head peering over the stable door. I said “what’s that? I’ll take it!”,’ said Verity. ‘They phoned me the next day and asked if I was serious to which I replied “yes”. That was eight years ago now. He just kept growing and growing — he is a big backward horse. Every year I rode him but he couldn’t walk in a straight line! We call him the village idiot — he sits in the field on his bottom staring into the distance.’

Verity owns a commercial cleaning company and helps to run the farm she lives on with her partner Graham and trains Dickie Bob in her spare time as a hobby.

Three racing seasons ago Verity decided she needed to do something with Dickie Bob, who she called ‘a happy hack’. She entered him into various local point to points in the 2014 racing season.

‘I ran him four times. He came second on his first time out, then got a fourth and he was so bad at jumping we stopped. At this point we had learned a bit and realised he had potential.’

After having the summer off they were racing again last season. He came fourth on his first time out at Tiverton Point to Point at Chipley, then he had five wins on the trot at various events, including the local Kilworthy and Cherrybrook point to point races.

‘We took the summer off and he grew so fat I struggled all year to get the weight off him,’ said Verity.

At his first race this season — the mixed open at Chipley — Dickie Bob came second, which Verity puts down to him having had ‘too many Christmas puds’.

The horse that beat him was the highest rated horse in the country,’ she said. ‘He then came second again at the Westcountry Champion Chase at Buckfastleigh but he severed his heel and had to have seven weeks off.’

Dickie Bob ran at Cherrybrook recently, by which time he had lost the weight and started to feel back to normal, and won the Hunt Race.

Last week Verity took him to a Hunter Chase at Exeter Racecourse.

‘It’s a step up because Exeter has bigger and stiffer fences than a point to point. It is slightly more professional racing and it was his first time on a professional course. He won by five lengths! He pranced back into the paddock, with the commentator saying he looked like he could go around again.’

This win means that he has now qualified to race at the Hunter Chase Evening at Cheltenham racecourse on April 27. If he manages to come first or second in next week’s race he will qualify for the Fox Hunters race at the esteemed Cheltenham Festival next year, racing on the same day as the Gold Cup.

Dickie Bob gets trained exclusively on Dartmoor by Verity everyday and in all weathers. She said this year had been particularly hard with the extreme weather conditions and the amount of mud she had to try to get Dickie Bob to gallop through. The majority of other horses on his level train on all weather facilities with the use of a sand school.

She said: ‘I’m hopeful he will do well — I wouldn’t traipse all the way up there if I didn’t think he had a good chance. He’s a superstar and I feel euphoric that he’s come this far.’