Hi all, I last updated you after Christmas when the yard had had some down time and we were just starting to get going. Since then things have been none stop! The competition season is getting under way and there are a couple of new faces in my team! I have three 6 year olds that are new to my team.
The first is Arriety, a 16 hands chestnut mare with incredible breeding. She is by the top Oldenburg stallion Armitage out of a mare that won a gold medal at the Young Rider European Championships. I have done one show with this mare where she jumped double clear and was placed in the Discovery class. Soon she will be ready to step up a level but she also has another career as a dressage horse and recently contested the Northern Regionals coming 12th (not with me) which is great and keeps her busy!
The next horse is Archimedes, a bay Oldenburg Gelding by Ashby. He is not very big standing at 15.3HH but he makes up for it in power and attitude! I’m really looking forward to getting out to our first show together at Bishop Burton next week.
The final new member to my team is Strebor Russel, a grey gelding by Olympic stallion Russel. This horse is particularly exciting because he is the first horse I have bought on my own! He was broken and started off by a friend of mine and I bought him a week ago. He’s a lovely stamp of a horse with a fabulous nature, I really think a lot of him. We will also do our first show together next week at Bishop Burton.
Next week is going to be very busy with the young horses going out on Tuesday and then I leave for the Development Classic show at South View in Cheshire on Thursday so I will have to fit all of my teaching into Monday and Wednesday. Some how! Each week I am teaching even more new horses and riders which I absolutely love.In January I coached both the Novice and Intermediate teams from the White Rose Riding Club who are competing in the Northern Area Team Competition on 14th of February. Wishing them all the best of luck.
I also managed to squeeze in a couple more days hunting recently with the Holderness Hunt and the Highmoor Bloodhounds which is the best fun. I’m very fortunate that Molineux Competition Yard kindly supply me with fab horses to take out hunting which makes the day even more enjoyable.
In the coming weeks I plan to try to get to a few more local shows with the new horses to get to know them and I am also aiming to get to some bigger shows as my best horse is now fit enough to start jumping some Grand Prix classes. I hope to do Bishop Burton Development Classic and the Northcote Masters show, both of these are in March.