A Brief History of me
I began horse riding during Covid so I have now been riding for a total of four years and I got Lindeth Con- Artist (Artie) who is my current horse a year and a half ago. When I bought him he had very limited experience of showing and I had never tried to qualify for the Royal International or the Horse of the Year show before. We did a few shows last year but we were very restricted as I didnt have a horse box or trailer, so I had to rely on friends to get us to a few shows. This said, we still managed to qualify for STARS at Aintree last year.
Fulfilling My Ambition
The major change for me came in February this year when my dad decided to pass up the chance to buy his dream car and instead bought a 3.5 tonne horse box. This has given me the opportunity to realise my ambitions and has provided the freedom to go to a show or clinic most weeks from that date onwards, allowing Artie and I to gain so much more experience.
This year’s results so far
My show season started with Leigh and district which was a local show to me where I won both of my ridden classes and my inhand class. I then went on to win champion in both the inhand and ridden championships. Followed by overall supreme champion of the whole show. I then started bsps affiliated shows where I won a pretty polly mixed height SHP class at the north of England summer show. In the summer I went onto compete at area 1b where I won the 15hh SHP class. This qualified me for the summer champs and at this show I also became SHP champion for the first time at a bsps show. As our confidence grew we went onto our first ever county show at Royal Lancashire where Artie coped really well in the buzzy environment seeing new things and won his 15hh SHP class there.
Through going to local shows and working my way up the levels it has allowed me to gain experience, knowledge and ring craft from people all around me. As a result of this Artie and I have developed our relationship of trust and confidence within one and another. This led me to believe that we could qualify for the RI which we managed to achieve at an area 4b show at Newark in April by winning my class. This was my main goal that I was trying to achieve this season.
I then thought that I should try to do some HOYS qualifiers for the first time ever, as I looked for appropriate qualifying shows I came across TSR and believed that this would be my perfect opportunity to compete against other home produced competitors at the lovely show ground of Stoneleigh. I didnt have an expectation of winning, I just wanted to have a strong performance at a bigger show and have fun. However, Lindeth Con- Artist exceeded all of my expectations and pulled out a beautiful show to win the class and qualify us for HOYS on our first attempt. I couldnt have been any more proud of him even to the point that I was crying happy tears!
A little bit later on in the year we attended our first ever stay over show at the Royal International Horse Show which I had dreamed of competing at for a long time, so to have even qualified to get there was amazing to me. On top of that Lindeth Con- Artist soaked up all of the atmosphere and went foot perfect all weekend but especially in his show for us to achieve an amazing 6th place out of a strong class of 25 ponies from all over the country.
HOYS 2024
I am already planning for the future by always trying to improve mine and Arties preformance from the last time so that is what I am going to continue to do in the run up to hoys this year as well as attending bsps summer champs and some clinics. I cant wait to attend and compete as I just want everyone to see how far we have come to be able to get to this level and all of the commitment that goes into it. Im keen to also prove to fellow home produced competitors that you are able to do this too just like I have done and I enjoy every second of it. Thank you for reading and fingers crossed for a great performance and lots of great memories at HOYS!
