On Sunday, I will have owned George for two years, and we will have had our journey for almost 23 months.
So here goes...
this horses Story:
He was rescued from slaughter in 2006 for just €15 and he was shipped over here with about 20 or so other horses, all of which my Mum's friend had saved with inheritance money from her parents. Mum was looking for a horse but she couldn't find anything she liked and after I fell off when I was trying George then she was about to say 'maybe we should wait a couple of years before you get another pony' but he was under £1000 and the best we could afford at that time, so we took him home 21/07/07 but he was just left in the field to put weight on under Bonnie strained her tendon 16/08/07 so we decided to attempt to catch him up, and it took us about a week till we could lead him in. I had my first ride on him at SWDRC championships 02/09/07 and that was where the journey for us began. Over the winter we attended pony club training but I was told time and time again 'he's dangerous', 'he needs a bit of rough handling' and 'he's too much for you' at this point i am going to mention the only tactful instructors we had for those winter training sessions - Erin Wittich and Sarah Burton, they helped me immensely and i was saddened when i could no longer continue training with them in February, however, it slowly began to pay off 16/02/08 when we came third in the 2'6'' at SWDRC and 09/02/08 when we got a clear round at Lordsbridge. Then the next week it was back to square one when we were eliminated at the Jays in the 2'6'', it was especially sad for me as it marked a year after my friend had been killed, in march we jumped trailblazers and came 1st with a double clear to qualify for the second rounds. We went to a couple of XC training sessions and it took us 23 attempts to get over the skinny (I wish I could tell you I was joking!)! And I almost fell off at a fence no bigger than 1'6''! in April we jumped at Horseheath Race Course and I fell off at fence four after a stop. I took him on a couple of hacks during the week and fell off both times, then we took him to Lordsbridge trailblazers second rounds where we came second in our warm up and 1st in the qualifier, t seems so small now, but it was my first national championships and the stuff only my dreams were made of in previous years. I was promptly bought back down to earth when we had 2 refusals at Isleham Hunter Trial but we did team selection for SJ and the team qualifiers for XC the next week we were 2nd and 5th at the team selection in the 2'6'' (5th) and 2'9'' (2nd) this was followed with 3rd place for the team the next day at the qualifiers. In May, George lost a shoe and due to mum's work ended up with a 3 week break, so it wasn't a good month, in june things picked up - we came 4th in the 2'9'' at the Jays, 3rd in the Intermediate at SWDRC annual show, and we had plenty of 16 mile hacks past combine harvesters, through Camgrain, over the rider surrounding the livery yard where he is kept and to pony club rallies. in july, things for better and better and we did the team qualifiers, finishing 4th as a team and the hempstead gardeners show, where we came 3rd in the 2'9'', 3rd in the pairs and 4th in the 3'3''. We then did Pony CLub Camp where it didn't go well as *someone* spread rumours about me and *someone else* bullied me for being a vegetarian, so I found it difficult to concentrate. But we went to Gt Witchingham one day and he was fantastic as he hates jumping at home more than almost anything. We then went to the trailblazers national championships, where he spooked at something at the side of the ring on day one and had an unlucky pole in the second phase on day 2. We came 3rd at riding for cups and 2nd at SWDRC championships. We were in the top three in all of our classes from 13th september - 26th october Then suddenly winter was upon us and it wasn't going well, but we managed to get Discovery double clears and British Novice Double Clears. To qualify for the BN second rounds. We had any number of transport problems up until May when we won at both of our shows and even jumped 5'2'' in the chase me charlie (i just got his LHC and he's 144.5cm), and we rounded off we two firsts and a second. June was amazing, we won literally every time we went out and July isn't looking too bad either as we qualified for BRC national open showjumping team championships!
"And If The Others See, you've got your victory - will you remember me?" - NeedToBreathe//Shine On (less info)