Bargain ‘Blue’ helps clinch bronze

Nor could celebrations have been foreseen when Savage was diagnosed with a brain disease back in 2007.

But five years on the York star is amazingly a Paralympic medallist with her £600 purchase Blue Tip Top Too proving an inspired acquisition.

Savage, 55, is still coming down to earth after helping the Irish team win an amazing dressage bronze medal at the recently-staged London Paralympic Games.

The four-strong outfit of Helen Kearney, James Dwyer, Eilish Byrne and Savage were officially ranked only eighth in the world approaching the Games yet only Great Britain and Germany fared better with Savage doing her bit on Blue Tip Top Too.

The pair produced a sparkling performance and one that belied Savage’s horse’s £600 price tag with many of the Games’s equine stars costing nearer £150,000.

It was also a performance that flew in the face of Savage’s acute disseminated encephalomyelitis medical condition which affects balance and co-ordination and also causes periodic extreme fatigue.

“I just can’t believe that we did what we did,” Savage told the Yorkshire Post this week.

“As for a £600 horse which is what I paid for her when she was a foal – to turn her into something like this is just amazing. I got Blue when she was six-months-old which was before I came ill.

“When I got ill it was a case of ‘what do I do now’ and ‘can I still ride?’

“It was hard at first and to try and change the horse from a show-horse into some type of dressage horse was a big enough task in itself, let alone me trying to learn dressage. I’d never done dressage before ,but Blue came along with me. I was struggling with it, she was struggling with it, but eventually it started to click.”

Even getting on the Paralympic team was a huge triumph for Savage, who had shown horses at county level before contracting her illness.

Yet she refused to settle for merely representing her country, with the bronze medal triumph still not yet having fully sunk in.

“We weren’t expected to get a team medal at all,” admitted Savage, who achieved personal bests in both the team test and the freestyle.

“We were looking really to finish in the top 10. When the announcement came out that we were in third we were saying ‘that can’t be right!’

“But then it went up on the board in the arena that we got bronze and it was just phenomenal.

“We were a great team, we worked really well together, we got one another geared up for our competitions and it was just fantastic.

“We’ve never competed in front of that sized crowd and when we went in and my trainer walked down with me it was pretty nerve-wracking.

“Going into it I thought I was going to cry just because it was so overwhelming.

“I just said to the horse ‘do your best for me!’”

Blue Tip Top Too did just that and Savage has been the toast of Foggathorpe this week after finally returning to her Yorkshire village on Wednesday.

Following Sunday night’s Paralympic Games closing ceremony, the immediate port of call was Dublin for an Irish celebration in style.

“We only came back to Ireland on Monday night to an unbelievable reception – there were over a thousand people at the airport,” explained Savage.

When the Paralympic dust settles, Savage’s next major target is success at the 2014 World Equestrian Games.

Competing at the 2016 Paralympics is also naturally on the York star’s mind though by then Blue Tip Too is expected to be enjoying a well earned rest.

“I’ll probably do a few winter competitions in England as Para-Dressage do quite a few,” she said. “I will do some of them over the winter and then next year it’s the Europeans so we’ll probably look at them.

“Then hopefully the World Equestrian Games. For another Paralympics I’d maybe have to look for another horse.

“I’d definitely need some sponsors or somebody to provide that because to get there with a horse like Blue is definitely going to be a mammoth task I think.

“I really do need somebody to say ‘there’s a horse here that may be suitable’ because the standard of the horses is just out of this world really.”

Another younger one like Blue, though, would do just fine.