Past Horses Thursday, Jan 3 2008

As this site is designed to document, in part, my history with horses; its only right that they take the centre stage.

Introducing My Gang; Past and Present:-

Joe The First:-

My first horse. He was bought for me when I was 14 as a 17.2hh, 25 year old Westphalien gelding. This horse put up with so much from me as a rather typical novice owner fresh out of a riding school.

Hinting at his size.. :-

Relaxing in the field:-

Bliss

Bliss was my second horse. She came to me when I was 16 as a 15.2hh, 4 year old chestnut mare. She oozed potential in jumping although her talent was very raw and somewhat uncontrollable I fell off her so often in the first year and she came so close to being sold many, many times as she was simply too much for me. Will power paid off however and we eventually clicked. Sadly, Bliss was retired before her time after a degloving of her hind leg from hock to coronet left her with a permanent lameness.

Bliss is now missing after been put on on a longterm loan :*( We’re trying desperatly to locate her but her loan home is refusing to respond to us at all :*(

I’d had her just a few days in this picture (and boy do we both look young). I’d taken her to a local equestrian centre to hire their indoor school and put her through her paces :-

The second one is a couple of years later at the place I was liverying then. I cringe at my position here!:-

Ruby

My darling girl. No one will ever understand how much I loved this horse. She arrived on the yard as part of a pair; two mares imported straight from Germany to be sold on. Both had been jumping huge classes in Germany and both were slightly scatty to say the least. Ruby was the smallest at just 16hh and she was a very very sharp ride. I clicked with her right from word go and where I tended to lack confidence while jumping, she had it by the bucket-load. Ruby wasn’t in my life long, but she enriched it more than I can explain. She was my 18th birthday present and I lost her the following May to colic.

I have very few photographs of Ruby, mainly due to our short lived partnership. This one was taken on Christmas day when my mum had bought her and Bliss matching Bucas rugs.

Scout

Scout was a horse well known to us as he belonged to the yard owner of the place we liveried. He was one of her young show jumpers. We bought him not for me to compete and he remained in training with the rider. This was my first real taste of life as a groom as I always travelled with him when he competed. He was also sold when I first left for Denmark and went to the same people who bought Joe 2 as a prospect for their son.

Sadly, Scout was involved in a rather horrific hit and run accident shortly after which left him with a broken neck and he was put to sleep at the scene. They never caught who hit him despite an appeal in the local media

Here he is (I still have the trophy he won this day):-

Spangle

Spangle appeared on the yard I was liverying at, on the back of a local dealers wagon. He’d bought him at Appleby horse market and was trying to sell him to the yard owner. Luckily for me, she didn’t want him. Myself and my mum went to look at Spangle and although we weren’t particularly looking for another horse, she fell in love with him.

He was a very poor looking 4 year old when he came to us and very very green. He was my first dressage project and with the help of an amazingly talented local trainer; Spangle was produced to medium level dressage. He gave me a real taste for the discipline. He was sold in 2001 when I first moved to Denmark and was probably the horse I regretted parting with most. Sadly, he was put to sleep last year after an accident in his field which resulted in a broken leg.

This was taking in the summer of 1999 after just being bathed and ready to go showjumping. Excuse the mane… my mum would never let me touch it!

First starting to jump and yes, Im cringing at my position yet again! :-

Joe The Second:-

This boy arrived on the yard I was liverying at as a failed show jumper. They initially wanted crazy money for him and we couldn’t afford him. A couple of years on and he still wasn’t jumping…. the price fell and we bought him as a potential dressage horse. I adored this horse, he always made me feel absolutly amazing when I rode him. When I first moved to Denmark in 2001, I sold him to a friend of mine and she still has him to this day. Sadly however, Joe has been plagued with health problems and is more or less retired at just 11 years old. (He was 4 in this picture) :-

Jack

My current, beautiful, amazing boy. This horse is so loving its unbelievable. I’m still learning to ride him without doubt and I hope the day comes when I can truely do him justice.

Taken back in the UK:-

Miscellaneous Horses

Ive ridden numerous horses for other people over the years. In my teens I was primarily into show jumping and did a lot of BSJA competitions. I moved over to focus on dressage in my twenties.

This was Jerry, a horse that came to the yard on schooling livery. He box walked like crazy but was a lovely ride.

Where It Began..

It was my Grandad who first took me riding. He paid for all my lessons as a child and always encouraged my passion as I grew older. He died a few years ago and I miss him terribly but one thing I know is that he will always be watching over me and enjoying the fact that I’ve never stopped… even when people have told me it’s time.

So, for the laugh of it…

The pony below was at my first riding school. His name was Tom Thumb Look at my feet!!

And these days… a bit older

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Introduction Thursday, Jan 4 2007

This blog has been established with a couple of goals in mind. Firstly, is the hope of bringing together and presenting a few of the underlying concepts of classical equitation. Secondly, on a more personal side, it will (hopefully) serve as a diary for my own partnership with my darling horse, Jack, and document our (relatively) recent emigration to Denmark.

My love for classical equitation has developed over a few years after being witness to some truely horrendous training methods all umbrella’d under the broad title of dressage. I took up dressage after being dazzled and humbled by the beautiful acts performed in seemingly perfect harmony by horse and rider combinations. Dressage, for me, was an art form – the ultimate persuit of perfection! How wrong I was….. I’ve been on a number of dressage yards now and been horrified by some of the modern methods employed by professional riders. Horses are drilled at younger and younger ages and manufactured to be nothing more than competition animals. Riders are under more and more pressure to produce results for owners and the horses are suffering as far too much is demanded of them at such a young age.

It was a chance encounter with a classical trainer that turned my attention to a different path. Here, the focus is on training the horse in such a way that the animal’s wellfare and physiology is always of paramount concern. Many of the movements demanded at even the highest level of dressage can be seen in fields around the world, performed by horses running free. This leads me to the key point…. Horses know how to be horses; It is us, as passengers, who should learn how to ride.

Sadly, many amazing classical trainers have shrunk back into their own microcosms as they become more and more disillusioned with the modern dressage world. Horses with broken outlines, hollow backs and not tracking up correctly can win at top levels in dressage. Rollkur is often hailed as the most amazing way to train horses for the competition arena and the wellfare of the animal that we’re all meant to love so much is becoming more and more compromised.

I am involved with horses due to a love of that animal. For thousands of years, horses have been a partner to man. They’ve carried him to war, they’ve ploughed fields, they’ve pulled his goods, they’ve acted as transport and they’ve been friends and companions. These days, it feels like many people are no longer involved in the sport for that reason or rather they get influenced by new, modern techniques that promise them fast results. There are no fast results. There are no quick fixes. Training should always be done in a way that preserves your friend’s physiology and respects the fact that he, or she, is another living being and that our apparent ownership shouldn’t give us the right to abuse that.

In April 2007, myself and my fiance made a decision to leave the UK. This was for a number of reasons which I won’t bore people with here. In May 2007, my darling horse followed us and embarked on a 24 hour journey to Denmark. It has been a rollercoaster of a year. Things are very different here to the UK and it has been a steep learning curve for me. It’s also been both enlightening (in the sense of learning about how another country train and care for their horses) and amusing (some of the language difficulties have been hilarious). Hopefully, this site can do justice to a few of those more amusing situations and bring a smile to some people, particularly those who have followed our venture to another country.

So, in advance, thankyou for reading and feel free to leave comments

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