Jack - Petplan Equine Ambassador

Once again we’ve had a very busy few weeks; we’ve welcomed some new faces to the yard and had a sad goodbye… In my last update I made the very hard decision to retire Rocco from eventing and mentioned that I might have to move to the dark side and take up some dressage with him. But with some great fortune, I had a phone call from a friend days after asking if I knew of a dressage horse to be a fun much loved family horse. Rocco fitted the bill and has gone on loan to the most wonderful new home where he is treated like the king he is. I’m very lucky as it’s only 10 minutes away from me and I can go and visit whenever I wish. I honestly couldn’t have wished to have found a better place and I know that sounds like a cliché but it’s true. And best of all, no dark side dressage for me just yet!

So onto the eventing, I went to Ascot Under Wychwood at the beginning of June with Tambourine Man (Jerry), Landsman (Scooby) and Baidu M2S (Beau). No prizes for us on that day, but all three rode lovely dressage tests and went clear cross country. Jerry and Beau headed to West Wilts a week later were we had a much better day with Beau scoring a great 26.5 double clear to finish in 2nd place and Jerry did a nice test too for 34.8 which was still good in his tough marking section. He went on to jump double clear to finish in 5th place in the open.

July saw us head to Chepstow first with Jerry and Beau again. Jerry did a really super test to score 23.8 which was a personal best for him. We had a very frustrating rider error show jumping so a pole kept us from winning and knocked us to down to 6th place. Beau very much found his inner race horse (he has NO thoroughbred in his breeding!) being on a race course and I wasn’t sure after the canter in his test I would ever trot again, so we scored a 36. The race horse theme ran throughout and we had two down show jumping but a nice steady (against his will) clear cross country. After Chepstow I took Jerry to Upton House which I haven’t been to for a few years. I forgot what a lovely event it is and will certainly be back next year. Unfortunately I massively let Jerry down, after a nice dressage and show jumping he was going very nicely cross country and at the biggest brush fence on course I saw a bit of a flyer… “a bit of” is an understatement! Which Jerry amazingly picked up on and cleared the fence, but it rattled his confidence and we had our first stop cross country together. Most importantly he came home feeling like his normal self. It is the up and down of the sport I guess.

Onto one of my favourite events of the calendar; Dauntsey Park. Jerry was back on form jumping double clear to finish in 9th place in a very competitive and close section. I also took new ride, April Moondtanze (RT), who is a five year old home bred, standing at 17,2hh owned by Hannah Fenech and her mother Jenni. RT was thrown in at the deep end having only been with me a week and Dauntsey is always known as one the tougher events. I planned to do each phase as it came and we could always withdraw at any point. RT exceed all expectation and rode a lovely 27 double clear; we went slowly and circled between a double of skinny wishing wells cross country but he was still good enough for 9th place. I was so pleased with him and very excited for what he has to come.

At the moment as I write this the August weather can’t quite make its mind up and sadly Homme House was cancelled which was a huge shame as RT missed his second run. Another new face to join my stables is Grouse who has no fancy name he is just Grouse, but he’s a really lovely horse who I’m very excited to get out eventing on. I took RT, Grouse and Dundiesel (Jackson) to our local show where they hold affiliated show jumping classes. This was great practice for them all especially RT and Grouse who head to West Wilts Horse Trials in a few days. And Jackson I just love to jump and smile from ear to ear the whole time.

Well a busy few weeks have passed and some very busy weeks ahead too, but I’m so lucky to have such lovely horses to ride and it makes all the hard work and busy times feel much easier.