Some of you might remember that about 8 years ago I created a series on Ponybox documenting my progress in retraining a young Thoroughbred racehorse, Moonfire, for his eventing career. Those of you who continued to follo ...
Some of you might remember that about 8 years ago I created a series on Ponybox documenting my progress in retraining a young Thoroughbred racehorse, Moonfire, for his eventing career. Those of you who continued to follow my (admittedly sporadic) work would know that, despite the ...
I wish I could say ‘time heals’, but it doesn’t. I still miss him every day. I still cry every time I look at his photos. Some days I’ll wake up and simply can’t face a world without him in it. I can’t leave my bed, because, what’s the point? But you don’t get to just lie in bed ...
I screamed. I started gasping ‘what’s happening’, and automatically untangled his legs from the rope boundary of the cooldown where he’d collapsed. People started rushing over while I just kept hysterically repeating ‘what’s happening? Oh my God what’s happening?’ They started br ...
We loved our perfect Moo. The thought of losing him - it never even crossed our minds. It was one of those things too terrible to think that it might ever happen to you. One of those ‘I can’t even imagine what it would be like’ things. He was my everything. My ticket to all my go ...
After the setback with Moo’s suspensory ligament, I pretty much decided that 2017 was going to be a write-off. Because we have so few events, because I’d been so cautious in protecting both Moo’s confidence and my own, the idea of trying to actually achieve anything in only the s ...
After Moo’s tie back, I was in my final year at university, and we hadn’t had lessons in a while. I played with him a lot while he was recovering. The place we were stabling at the time didn’t have a proper arena, so we would do our schooling on the beach, and sometimes take tack ...
At the beginning of 2013, following his injury at champs, I began to bring Moo back into work. Physically, he seemed fine, but suddenly his behaviour was worse than it had ever been. He was perfectly sound, but if I put on any pressure at all, he’d be up on his hind legs, and jus ...
Moo’s tantrums were getting worse. He was scheduled to compete in his first graded event, but before that we had a clinic scheduled with an Olympic level eventer. I said to my instructor just before that I was worried about taking him, in case he reared, and the clinic instructor ...
As humans we love to look on the bright side, we love our silver linings and positive spins. We love to feel moved and inspired. Sorry, but I don’t have anything like that for you today. What I’m here to share with you isn’t graceful, or inspirational, or ‘nice’ on any level. I’m ...
