Juliette - Petplan Equine Ambassador

Wow, what a long and miserable winter this has been – is it nearly spring yet?

We have struggled to get fit and keep going in all the wet weather, with no school and no lights – there is only so many circles you can do in a boggy field, by head torch, in the rain (or snow)! I have put in endless time and energy to use arenas for training this winter, including clear round nights after work, weekend clinics, numerous showjumping outings and days of holiday used for training in daylight. I have finished this winter more exhausted (and poorer) than usual!

Nonetheless, there have been a few near-miraculous successes for the Wonder Team to report!

Jess (aka Wonder Pony) has continued her second career as a showjumper this winter, with several outings to local venues to compete in the Discovery classes. A cold, wet day in December we set off to Keysoe in Bedfordshire for another class. But this day, things were a bit different… on arrival I had a sudden realisation that I had forgotten to renew our membership! After a few frantic minutes on the phone we were back on track and our entries were in. I was surprised to see how busy the show was and the British Novice class was full to bursting. After hanging around in the cold for an hour the class dragged on, so I decided to switch entries and just compete in the Novice – it was too cold to wait and I needed to get home before dark! I thought it was unusual that there was a separate jump off this time, and as I hadn’t read the schedule I didn’t realise that we were in a qualifier class. Jess produced a smooth clear round though and we duly waited for our turn in the jump off. It was a foot perfect clear for us again in the second round – we won the class! Only then did I realise we had qualified for the Blue Chip Winter Showjumping Championships at Hartpury! Wow!

If this wasn’t exciting enough, Jess added to her amazing achievements by returning to Keysoe in January to also qualify for the Discovery Championships! Another huge class in which we finished in seventh place, with the top 8 horses off to the finals. We have only been competing in pure showjumping for a year and Jess will be 22years old this spring!

Boodles (aka Wonder Horse In Training) has also had a great winter; with lots of showjumping outings under our belt to improve his confidence he has been boldly jumping around the British Novice classes and is almost ready for his first Discovery. His flatwork is also becoming much more established, he is really much stronger in his core and is finally achieving self-carriage – albeit in short bursts! We have achieved our aim to compete in our first Elementary dressage tests and have scored 60%+ in both attempts so far! Boodles biggest achievement of the winter came at our dressage day at Contessa Riding Centre, where we managed to win both the Novice and Elementary tests, scoring a creditable 68.8% in Novice 28.

Our eventing season has been somewhat delayed with the weather, and the multiple appearances of the dreaded ‘Beast from the East’..... We had hoped to run in the BE90 at Tweseldown, but sadly waterlogged courses saw the event cancelled (along with so many others). We now aim for our most local venue at Horseheath in April; we are likely to start our season there in the BE100 if the next few weeks go well - watch this space!