We catch up with what Bonnie Fishburn has been up to lately and we're very excited to hear of some new arrivals...
Happy New Year everybody!
Last time I wrote to you Florence and I had just registered under British Dressage (BD) rules and had completed our first competition. Since then we have had a couple more BD outings.
We headed to Field House Equestrian, which was another venue I’d entered through Equo. Florence was feeling fantastic and pulled out all the stops in Novice 22 for 76.9%, including getting 7.5’s for both the medium trots, a 9 and 8.5 for her walks and 8 for her paces. We were thrilled to bits to pick up the red one and take first place in the open and overall.
Then in the Novice 37, which is quite a tricky test, she felt fantastic but had quite a big spook up at the far end of the arena next to the toilets, causing her to change behind and hollow – scoring a 5. Other then that I was delighted with her. We scored 68.75% to take second place in the novice and overall. So Field House proved another really good day out, despite me sporting some war wounds on my face from a little incident bringing the horses in from the field the night before…
Next we headed to Prescott Equestrian. Florence was a little star again despite the howling winds. We did Novice 22 scored 71.55% for second place and second overall. We then did Novice 37 and scored 72.68% for first and first overall! So in the two weeks we have been registered for BD we went to three shows and gained enough points to qualify for the Novice Open Regional Finals in February! Florence is turning into a real dressage diva.
After earning all the points needed to qualify for the regionals in such a short space of time Florence deserved a nice break, so went out and joined the boys on their holidays. With the weather being so rotten I didn’t leave them out for the full six to eight weeks that I usually like them to have. Instead they were brought in on the bad nights and started working again just before Christmas. So it’s all systems go here and all of the horses are back in work to get ready for the 2016 season.
You may have seen on Facebook there are a couple of new arrivals at Dodcott Grange Stables. I decided that I would really like a project horse over the winter and went in search of a new horse. I travelled up and down the country looking for a broken four-year-old that was sensible enough for me to take on and would be ok for me to do on my own, as I’m mostly home by myself when I ride.
After a month of searching I didn’t find anything that I liked within budget. Then, at the end of November I came across Elfie. Elfie is an unbroken, yet well handled three-year-old. He was not really what I was after, but his attitude seemed so genuine that I decided to give him a go.
Elfie has now been with me for about six weeks and I’ve backed, broken and ridden him away. He’s now having a little break to take it all in. He has taken to work beautifully. Let’s hope he keeps it up. He is a 15.3hh grey roan Warmblood gelding, with four lovely big socks and a blaze. He is very light in colour so I think that he will go white quite quickly. He was quite a late baby (August) so I think that he still has quite a bit of growing to do.
My new arrivals don’t end there! I also ended up coming home with a yearling, so completely different to what I was after but I just couldn’t resist her. She is a beautiful bay filly that turns two in March. She has been kept with Elfie all of her life and neither of them had ever left home before coming to me. She is by the lovely stallion Carousel and she moves beautifully. So, although I have a long wait before I can do anything with her, she’s quite an exciting future prospect. She has a lovely temperament and I hope to get her out to a few in hand shows next season.
Bonnie Fishburn