Hello everyone… as usual we have been extremely busy now we are in full flow of the showing season.
We went to the British Show Horse Association Spring Festival at Addington on the 6th May and had some great results. Victoria Buckland and her own Cobswallop (Boysie) won a very good Amateur Maxi cob class. They are having such a great season. Boysie really is a lovely horse to take to shows. He’s always so happy to go and always tries his best.
Nat rode Morrows Marksman (Bentley) for the first time ever in the ring and she won a very strong Royal International qualifying Heavyweight cob class and then went on to stand champion open cob. Even though Nat rides Bentley a lot at home, she has never ridden him competitively. We also took Wulfstan Fenman to contest the Horse Of The Year Show Qualifying coloured horse class. He went so well and gained the highest conformation mark of the class, a 48 out of 50, but then gained a really disappointing ridden mark, which we couldn’t really fathom out, but that’s how it goes and so he dropped out of contention. He still got placed though in a huge class and we are very pleased with his progress.
Then we were off to Royal Windsor on the 12th May. It was a midnight start for the team in order to get down there in time for the first class. The early start certainly was worth it when Simon and Bentley (Morrows Marksman) won a huge Heavyweight cob class. Bentley went superbly. He was pulled in top after the initial go round and then gave the ride judge a great spin round and he stayed at the top of the line to win the class. We certainly celebrated with a nice glass of champagne. Bentley has won all his classes so far this term. Simon was also placed on 4 year old novice cob The Ringmaster and Vicki Buckland and Cobswallop were also placed in a huge open class. We managed a quick look around the stalls and a bite to eat before the tiring journey home. We were just short of a 23 hour day by the time we got home. The horses enjoyed a nice quiet day in the field the next day to recover. Windsor is such a great show and it’s one that we all look forward to and one that everyone wants to win.
On May the 14th, we went to Newark and Notts show to present the prizes in the HOYS qualifying Grade C jumping class, on behalf of the sponsors British Horse Feeds Speedi-Beet. It was a nice day actually just to go to a show without any horses and watch some jumping. We took our three year old son Luke who had a great time playing on the fair.
On May the 20th we took two novice cobs to BSPS area 4b, Lincolnshire Spring Show. Coloured cob Churchtown Minstrel contested his first ever show and he won a really big coloured Royal International Qualifying class. He was brilliant and performed a fabulous show. Then it was the turn of Max (The Ringmaster) who won the RI qualifying Maxi cob class. Max just takes everything in his stride and really does bely his years. We are thrilled with how he is taking to the job.
We also had had a very exciting interview and photo shoot this month from Horse And Hound. The feature came out really well and we even ended up front cover of the magazine. There are some great shots of the horses and the yard and we even managed to give the Fibre Beet branded clothing a plug.
We had a really good stint with the weather and we managed the first BBQ of the year and even got the paddling pool out for Luke (and the adults!). We are gearing up now for the Royal International Horse Show in July where we have a team of 6 going.
We’ve had novice small hunter Foxcatcher out to a few shows just to ride around in preparation for his first show which will hopefully be at Rutland County in June.
Until next time!
Simon and Nat x
