Winners & Washouts
To say the past few weeks have been a mix of winning moments and washouts would be an understatement. We’re certainly a team who’ve been affected by the unseasonably wet weather and the abandoned events. With the horses all feeling on top form it was so disappointing to withdraw from Catton after show jumping, especially when they were all on such good dressage scores, but we picked ourselves up and headed to Farley, where the sun came out and we won!
It was a hugely exciting win for Monbeg Pompeii (or Foxy to her friends) who’s owned by our very good friend Rosie Williams. We were absolutely thrilled that Foxy finished with a sub-thirty dressage, two very good jumping rounds and just a few speeding points – oops!
Foxy’s confidence has improved so much across the country in the last few months, and she flew round an influential track like an absolute pro. I’ve been riding her while Rosie is at university but I would quite like to steal her permanently! We’ve looked at each of the different areas of her work and care to identify where we can make small improvements. One thing we noticed was that her dressage saddle wasn’t quite right, so we made an emergency call to our super saddler Helen Leedham and Albion Saddles. They worked some magic with a new dressage saddle that seems to have made a huge difference. Foxy was noticeably more comfortable and was able to deliver a more relaxed and overall brilliant test.
Then came Offchurch, again in the dry which was a nice change, and again some super results, with a 3rd in the BE105 for Stan! Despite deciding he couldn’t remember how to go backwards in a dressage test we ended up second after the first phase! He went on to jump two super rounds for 3rd place, which we were absolutely thrilled with!
One area I can always be confident of is that the horses are on the very best nutritional plan, thanks to the support of the Dengie Nutrition team, in particular Claire Akers and Hannah Turner. Both Foxy and Stan have very good temperaments and hold their weight well, however, they wouldn’t be excessively good doers. Together with Dengie we’ve found that Dengie Hi-Fi Senior suits them both incredibly well. The straw-free formulation makes it ideal for performance horses and not just seniors, and that certainly seems the case with these horses. The addition of rapeseed oil in Hi-Fi Senior gives them a fantastic shiny and healthy coat too. Foxy’s speeding ticket certainly goes to prove there is no need to overcomplicate things with heating feeds, just a good base diet that suits the horse is all we need!
