Penelope & Leigh Dale

Like mother like daughter’ We purchased our lead rein pony Dartmoor pony ‘Hisley caliph’ in March 2023 for my daughter Penelope Rae.
Penelope has been riding since she was 17 months old starting out on a little Shetland pony called Kevin the carrot, and has been obsessed ever since.
As her mum I competed at HOYS level from 15 years old, finishing my riding career in 2017 then shortly after becoming pregnant with Penelope in 2018. We sold anything and everything to do with horses prior to me being pregnant, we didn’t even own a hoof pick. Until Penelope was born, and she was born to ride!
We managed to qualify ‘Hisley Caliph’ aka Sven for the HOYS M&M lead rein in 2023 where Penelope was only 3 years old.
his season we have come out with the main ambition to get to our favourite show …HOYS 2024!
Me being the mum stepped back from riding and put all my energy and time into Penelope doing what she loves. We produce Sven from home ourselves, I work as a end of life palliative care nurse full time and both my mum and myself prepare Sven for the shows and teach Penelope the ropes.
This year, so early on into the season our unicorn pony Sven has made both our dreams come true !
We attended the TSR show, the first time we have ever attended the amateur show which I also decided to ride Sven in the HOYS open Dartmoor qualifier which was the first one of the season, where I won and qualified for HOYS 2024 ! Yes I cried, with happiness and nerves with the thought of riding in the arena of dreams, On my daughters pony I stole briefly just to see how we got on, no way did I think we would qualify at our first ever attempt.
Penelope was so close to qualifying also this weekend in the HOYS M&M lead rein qualifier being joint second out of a huge class.
So we competed at the next lead rein qualifier this being only the second qualifier of the season which was Midland counties.
Michelle ( my mum/nana) and Steve (dad/grandad) were actually abroad this date of Midland counties, and wasn’t fond of me, Penelope and Sven travelling from Blackpool to arena UK alone whilst they were on a cruise. Michelle (Nana) is the unpaid groom and she never misses a opportunity to help and watch us ride. She does winge abit about early starts and long days but she loves it really ! She is our number one fan. Grandad Steve watches when he can as he’s very busy building customers horse boxes at our family buisness Evolution Horseboxes
As they didn’t want us to go to Midland counties alone I asked Penelope if she wanted to go to Disneyland Paris for the week instead of the show where she said ‘no , I want to go to the show and try and ride at HOYS this year like you mummy’
That was the decider, so off we went just the three of us from Blackpool to Arena UK to the Midland counties show.We made it there in one piece .We stayed the night before so we could enjoy a little horsey night away.
Penelope and Sven rode in the tiny tots lead rein and the open bsps lead rein at midland counties prior to her HOYS class for the nerves and practice, where they won both these classes and were overall mini champions.
We went into our HOYS lead rein qualifier later that afternoon, the collecting ring was overflowing with every single professional and top class pony to name. Which I began to doubt my decision about going there but then I thought ‘we are here now, we just never know, you have to be in it to win it ‘
We went into our huge class and did our trot up and got pulled in top originally by the judges.We pulled off a foot perfect show. I felt physically sick with nerves prior to coming out to do our show , Adam Forster who was pulled in next to us, laughed when I said I was nervous and said ‘don’t ruin it now by being nervous go do your figure of 8 and don’t blow it!‘
Thank you Adam !
When we waited for our results and the marks being added up Penelope was saying ‘ please mummy, please!!! I really want to win and really want to ride at HOYS’
I nearly cried for her, I said ‘ if I could give you my HOYS ticket and you ride there instead of me I would’
I just said fingers crossed and it dosnt matter if we don’t win today ! Onto the next show we will go.
Prior to going to Midland counties I had planned to attend as many HOYS qualifiers as physically possible to try my hardest to get Penelope back there this year. As it just didn’t seem fair as I stole her pony and I was riding at HOYS and she wasn’t.
The steward read the results from 6th place up, to pull us as the winners when they got to first place ! We were over the moon.
Penelope and Sven have booked their ticket back to HOYS!
We then competed in the HOYS mini championship where we were overall champions.
Hisley Caliph not only qualified for the Open Dartmoor Class with me on board but also in the lead rein M&M all in the space of a week !
This little pony is taking both Mother and daughter into the Arena of dreams.
Penelope rang nana and Grandad who were somewhere in the middle of the ocean by this point enjoying their cruise to tell them the news !
They couldn’t believe we did it all on our own !
We are so lucky to own such a beautiful pony which we can both share. And so grateful we qualified so early on in the season. Now we can concentrate on supporting and cheering on our friends who also have the same dream as us which is to get their tickets to compete at HOYS 2024 ! Roll on October !