MC Dressage

It all started from the age of 8, when I had begged mum for a riding lesson for my birthday. During my early years of riding I had the usual pix’n’ mix of naughty ponies. I had really never been interested in competing during my pony years. When I got into my teens, I had a mix of horses on loan, until I bought my first horse. Panache was a 16’3 TB mare, and the mix of TB and mare really did show through. She was a real so and so!! I had to ride her with “feel” and if I was ever ‘unfeeling’ then she would be sure to let me know about it! This helped me to develop a sensitive approach and connection with a horse. She was never going to be superstar in the dressage arena; she was better suited to the race track!!!

After a year trying to convince Panache that dressage was a good thing to do, we reached a mutual understanding and I ended up buying a chesnut tb mare, Emmy. Now I know what you’re going to say! Mare, TB and Chesnut, not a great combination at all. But in reality, she was a real star. She put me on the ladder in riding club dressage. Although she was never going to be a world beater, she did the job of getting me into dressage. I trained with Claire Lilley, who is a classically trained rider, and really made me aware of my seat and how this affects the horse and their balance. I rode for Claire in demos and featured in a few books of hers including “schooling with ground poles”.

Following Claries instruction I really felt I wanted to move from Medium up to Advanced and at that point I had a great opportunity to continue my education and experience at Talland School of Equitation. Talland gave me the opportunity to ride advanced horses in an environment where I had access to some of the best instruction the country has to offer and this made a real difference. Following Talland and the horses I had worked with there I felt that Emmy was not going to take me to where I wanted to go, so the search was on to find a horse that I could take to the next level.

William was the horse to take me to where I wanted to be and further!!! After six months of searching I found him. I had been to a number of big names, dealers and trainers, but I found William closer to home. A trainer at a rather exclusive livery yard where I was working at the time knew of a failed event horse. William was not going to be a badminton horse, so was not really up to what the owner wanted. So I bought him. He was not really your typical dressage horse. He was rather long and his body and mind were not particularly built for the job! But with correct training and careful riding I got him working all the way up to grand prix. In this time I had done various regional’s, competing at various levels. I spent so much time and money during this period on training, this included long sessions on the lunge. I was also competing client’s horse and taking them through to regionals, and improving their way of going. William also was a star performer in a couple of Carl Hester’s demos and magazine articles. I competed William all the way up to Prix St George, but was training him at home at grand prix. I competed at high profile shows including Hickstead, putting me in the thick of the dressage world. I planned to take him out the following season at big tour, but due to an injury that was not meant to be. I decided that William had really done his time, and I felt to push him further would not be fair towards him. This led to my search for a new young horse to bring on and continue where William left off, with the ultimate aim of taking me to the top!

While I spent my time searching for that dream horse, I made a concerted effort to improve my riding and training even further. I worked hard to make my seat better and developed the very important feel even further. I have trained with a large number of high profile trainers throughout my career including Carl Hester, Andrew Gould, Ibebelle Wessel, I have been lucky enough to be able to ride and train various advance horses and work with other advance trainers during my career so far. Working with other trainers as a team, allowed us to discuss our riding and training. It was always reassuring to have other riders around to bounce ideas off!!

I took a trip to Holland to purchase my next grand prix horse. I ended up buying a young Dutch horse from the Kornebloem stud. After riding 26 horses over a two day period and boy was he worth waiting for! The natural athleticism that he possesses was evident form the second I sat on him. I knew instantly that he was the horse I had been looking for. In our first season together we were receiving scores regularly in the 70% plus region including wins at Hickstead and other high profile shows. Since then we have qualified for the regionals and also been scouted to represent teams at a National level….. At the age of 7, he already is showing great potential working towards grand prix........ and all along the way, William is right by his shoulder in the next stable, whispering words of encouragement, and advice on how best to work well to get an extra apple in his feed at the end of the day!

• Copyright 2010
• Site by BigTimeMedia