Laura - Petplan Equine Ambassador

The season may have started late but I have hit the ground running with competing all three of my own horses as well as having the pleasure of helping bring on two rather lovely young horses and teaching all my lovely loyal riders.

Ransom

Ransom has finished qualifying for the Petplan Equine Area Festivals at both Advanced Medium and PSG. His last outing to Pachesham was quite frustrating. He warmed up beautifully, performing every movement but as soon as he went in the arena he became quite unresponsive.

I have since had a lesson with our trainer Robbie Carpenter in preparation for our first Area Festival and he has given me some great advice to help with Ransom. Hopefully it starts to work when it counts!

Nelson

Nelson turned 27 in April and to celebrate I took him eventing to Munstead Horse Trials.

His face was so happy all day, and so was mine as this was the first time out eventing this season.

He bounced his way to a 32 dressage and double clear to come second! He loved being out eventing so much that we plan to head to Tweseldown for their next unaffiliated horse trials.

Finley

The continual bad weather from March continued to put a hold on the start to our eventing season with four of our events being cancelled: Tweseldown, Gatcombe, Goring and South of England.

In order to get an outing on grass we headed to Munstead for a combined training on grass in the Novice (1.10m) class. Finley was fab and scored a sub thirty dressage followed by one pole show jumping to come second! He was slightly like bambi on grass but I was pleased with how well he coped.

Our first BE run of the season was at the end of April in the Novice at Chilham Castle. This was far from ideal as I knew how testing and atmospheric it could be there but such is life!

We were incredibly lucky to get the run at Chilham as the weather was horrendous! I was competing in very soggy conditions but the event team did a fab job with the ground. Finley had been waiting for this moment for two months and he certainly stepped up to the occasion. A lovely calm dressage test followed by one pole showjumping, and a speedy clear to land us fifth place in our first event of 2018! I couldn’t have asked for a better start and it was definitely worth the wait.

The next run was in the 100cm at Tweseldown as I was unsure how he was going to cope with the Novice run at Chilham.

The weather couldn’t have been more different, but Finley stepped up to the occasion again with a lovely dressage, double clear, and yet another fifth place!

Our most recent outing was in the Novice at Borde Hill on Bank Holiday Monday. The ground was extremely hard and testing with the show jumping course causing lots of issues.

We pulled out another consistently good dressage. We had a few poles show jumping but I was pleased to get around considering the carnage that followed! The cross country course was quite tough, and I was nervous but he flew round making it seem effortless. I should never doubt him! We accrued a few time faults but I wasn’t going to push him on the ground. We finished just outside the top ten which I was really pleased with.

Despite looking after Finley to the best of my ability he came away from Borde Hill with a bruised sole in one leg and cellulitis in another! He has been having five star treatment in order to help him have a speedy recovery!

With his early successes we are currently leading the Racehorse to Event Horse section in the South East Eventer League as well as being placed in the Novice league. It is very early days but hopefully we can stay in the rankings!

In other news:

Easter week saw me teaching for me old pony club ‘Petersfield’ at their Mini and Novice clinics. These were a great few days teaching two great groups of girls who improved so much in a short space of time. I am going back to teach Junior camp in the summer for the second year.

The first of the two young horses I have been riding is Ramona. She is a seven-year-old Warmblood cross who is owner by Georgina who I instruct; and I took to her first event at Munstead Horse Trials. She is incredibly green and very wobbly; but the more she is being exposed to the better she becomes.

We were lying 4th after the dressage and went clear show jumping. Sadly, the water jump was far too scary and ended our cross-country round. She has since been back through the water and is now much braver at getting her feet wet at different venues.

And lastly there is Travis. A six-year-old Connemara who is owned by Georgina’s sister Helena. He is incredibly green and has needed to restart his whole training from scratch.

He will be attending some unaffiliated competitions over the next month to keep his training moving forwards.

Writing this all down makes me realise how much I have achieved in the last few months! I’m feeling rather tired just reading it! However this is just the beginning; and I have an incredibly busy three days of competing coming up so I best get some rest!