Ellen heads to Brand Hall International for the National Junior Championships

My name is Ellen Hobson, I am a 17 year old event rider based in York competing up to Intermediate and CCI* on my two horses Kidogo King and Fernhill Finnegan.

Coming from a non-horsey background I have built a strong team around me since I started eventing back in 2013. In 2015 I was lucky enough to find Kidogo, a 15.3hh, 15 year old, chestnut roan gelding, who is incredibly trying, cheeky and a little demanding (when it comes to food). Having moved up to novice last spring and completing my exams, I travelled over to Ireland for a few days to find young horse to ride alongside Kidogo and move up the ranks with. After trying 9 horses on one day, we brought home Finnegan, a 16hh, 8 year old, dark bay gelding, who is a very ‘quirky’ (a nice word for spooky, opinionated and an overgrown baby), bold and talented – when I got Finnegan last year he had done bits and bobs but nothing properly, and his progress over the last year is incredible.

As the BE calendar was published over Christmas, I cautiously highlighted Brand Hall International, with the hope of qualifying and competing in the National Junior Championships.  With the goal in mind I set out to achieve my qualifying Intermediate run, where I travelled from my by base in York to the Central Scotland horse trials in Edinburgh. The event started with dressage on the riverbank at the base of almost a castle on a hill. Kidogo took me around all three phases like the complete legend that he is to finish 9^th, in a section that included Ben Hobday on his Badminton ride Mulry’s Error!

Wednesday saw a full on day of packing the trailer with all our tack, the boys Equilage bales, Alfalfa and stable equipment, before we set off for the 130 mile trip to Brand Hall Thursday morning. On arrival we unloaded the boys, they had their passport inspection and then settled into their stables to munch down the grass floors. Meanwhile I took Kidogo off for a quick loosening up session before his trot up in the afternoon. I glammed up Kidogo, and changed into my trot up outfit, and trotted up Kidogo in front of the Brand Hall House. The evening saw us taking look at the one star course and giving Finnegan a cheeky peak at the arena walk around the international arenas.

Friday lunchtime saw my dressage test, excited to my tails for the second time, and to be able to do my double salute the two judges to conclude my test. Kidogo did a good test for 53.7 FEI. After his test I went for the a second walk around the one star course with Helen and then ANOTHER walk around the xc course this time around the novice.

Saturday was set to be the biggest day of them all, with the one star course to do on Kidogo in the morning and all three phases of the novice to do on Finnegan. An extended warm up for the cross country on Kidogo as unlike the usual one days, I had not jumped any show jumps prior to this. Knowing all seven of my minute markers and course in full we left the start box at pace with all to play for in the next 7 minutes and 25 seconds. Kidogo pinged around the course, eating up the ground; this horse is an xc machine looking for part D before I even turned to A.  As I came across the finish line we went into full speed ahead of wash down, studs out, cool boots on and vets on heart rate check. After about 10 minutes of cool down the vets gave the all clear for us to take Kidogo back to the stables, and have an unofficial trot up in a few hours. No rest for the wicked though as I was soon off to do Finnegan’s dressage test, where he came out little quick but settled nicely to do an improving test for 34. The showjumping followed where he completed a green but increasing confident round to jump clear. The weather started to turn from clear skies to grey as I set off across the country, but nothing was stopping Finnegan and I as we attempted the most technical course he has done. I pushed him for the time, opening up his huge stride and was to the minute until the last combination when I came with a bit too much speed and he completely ran past an incredibly skinny corner, when I represented he popped it nicely. Rather frustrating as he would have placed 3^rd otherwise, but we are better for it and will make sure I test the brakes next time!

Sunday morning started very early as I was up to give Kidogo a pre- trot-up loosening ride. After trotting up soundly we then jumped in reverse order. Having walked the course I knew the distances were long and being on a short striding 15.3 anyway I knew we would have to jump in with fight to get out on the set striding. Kidogo did not show any signs of having been cross-country the day before and jump very well, however I came in a little too strong onto the treble and double to take out the front rails.

We have had an amazing week to finish 14^th in the National Junior Championships, having learnt so much and gained championship experience.

Coming up Kidogo and I have a two day camp next weekend for the long list to be on the Northern team for then Novice U18 Championship held in July.

I'll be writing my Fulmart Blog every month so keep your eyes on the July blog for an update!

Ellen

A busy couple of months is overshadowed by the loss of a stable favourite.

I have just sat and read through my last blog and I have to say that since I last wrote I have experienced some great high's but also one of my worst low's. Things were looking fabulous the last time we caught up with Dayton on good form ahead of Badminton and the young ones seemed to be gaining form just at the right time as planned. I had a bunch of great shows on the calendar and it was full steam ahead....

Disaster struck on the morning of the BE at Northallerton.  After a successful day at Port Royal with Gea winning both her tests, we returned home to prepare three  for the event the following day. Everything was normal until the morning of the event when I reached the yard to find one of the horses seemingly with colic.  A quick call to the vet and I presumed the day would continue as planned but when I found one of the other horses off colour in the field my worst nightmare began...  as I explained to the vet when she arrived, something suspicious was going on and we both knew it wasn't going to be a quick job.  After and hour making the poorly horses comfortable and the vet doing tests while at the same time watching them deteriorate rapidly, we reached the conclusion that they had the dreaded Atypical Myopathy. We didn't have time to think about getting upset we knew we had to get them to the nearest Equine Hospital as fast as possible.  The rest of the day and pretty much the following week is still a blur; within hours the first horse had been cruelly taken from us, but we feel exceptionally lucky that the second horse survived.  We are still in the early stages of his rehab 6 weeks on from that dreadful day and at this stage we are unsure how the disease will have affected him for the future as it is such an unknown in the veterinary world - not many horses are lucky enough to survive.  When we collected him from the vets after his three week stay the vet that discharged him said he was the first she had seen in her career survive.  The statistics are scary but I would advise everyone to read up on the disease and be as prepared as possible.  It happened so fast and turned our world upside down in 12 hours. Had I known what I know now I feel I could have done more in the beginning and I will always regret only bringing one horse home, the experience will haunt me forever.

Getting positive again was really hard, all the horses that live with me are like my family and I became really paranoid about everything that was remotely 'out of character'  but I knew that life had to go on.  We had training planned and Badminton was only a week away. Even with my mind off the job Dayton put a smile on my face in our last training session at Vale View.  Our last outing at Manor Grange for BD went as planned with him gaining qualifying scores and wins in his Elementary tests.  Gea and Charlie Harper also put in great performances to win and finish second in their tests.  Everyone finished the day with a +70% score and they put a smile back on my face. So that was it we were off.....

Badminton was a pleasure, we finished 22nd. I felt I rode the dressage badly, I needed to be braver. D was a little hot in the warm up so I opted for safe and looking back I could kick myself,.  A championship is the time to ride for your life, not play it safe! He did give me a fabulous showjump and cross country ride which really pulled us up the final result.  If i'm lucky enough to get another chance I'm hoping it will be third time lucky.  

Joanne Pullan's Grafiba made his BYEH debut at Badminton.  Jasmine Watson took the reins for me only a couple of days before as my times for the Cup and the BYEH classes clashed.  She did a brilliant job to finish 3rd.  Graffi is a huge horse standing at 17hh at only 4y/o so as you can imagine being weak and gangling as well as a giant, it doesn't always make him the easiest but he tried his heart out and I could not have been prouder of them.

With my BE Novice debut at Richmond cancelled the focus was on Graffi for Chatsworth.  After missing his ticket by one place I was determined to give it my all.  As he was my only ride at Chatsworth it meant I could focus 100% in him and it paid off as we won! He gave me a super ride and really showed himself off, he is for sale as he is a little big for me to event so whether we make Burghley together we will have to wait and see.  With that out of the way there was only one place to head to... the airport.  After the events of the month I have to admit to not being sad at leaving everyone behind and heading for some sunshine with the family.  The horses had all been amazing at their respective events and they were ready for a quieter couple of weeks as well.

Feeling refreshed and with my mind back on the future I was straight back to a competition at Bishop Burton with Inola Smith's Upsalls Lorna.  The dressage was rather interesting which really disappointed me as she jumped a fabulous double clear. Nolly put it down to me not having seen her for a month and she had been enjoying lots of jumping competitions.  She has now had to knuckle back down to her training in the white boards ahead of her next run at Skipton. The following day saw Fleur T improve on her last outing to finish 6th in her Section at Shelford with a 25 dressage.  Charlie Harper made his BE debut also finishing 6th in his section.  The following day we waved off the super consistent cool dude Kelly's Star to his new home; he has been a real pleasure to produce and compete and I hope to see him out with his new owner very soon.

I have a few new rides for the next couple of months to get excited about including Bramham.  I'm hoping that everything is now back on track and even minus one of my all time favourites we can still enjoy the rest of the season and have a bit of success with the talented babies I have in the stables.

Sam 

Angel Gillott writes her first blog for Team Fulmart

So where do I begin guys… well  firstly my name is Angel and I’m now a Fulmart Feeds blogger.  Each blog will follow my personal journey through the horsey world, I will be talking about seasons, events, wins, thrills and spills, anything that will grab your attention!

Firstly, everyone knows the summer grass is coming through and we are getting to that stage now where the horses are slowing turning into large balloons as the summer grass hits, well this is what I thought would happen to Tom Tom (my horse) but turns out that’s not the case! Now most of you sitting here will think I’m the luckiest person alive to have a horse that you don’t have to worry about getting fat at this time of the year, well let me tell you now that is not the case… bearing in mind Tom Tom is 17hh TB x Irish draught and any work he does he puts on muscle and strips back the little fat he has, I thought this would be great seen as I was used to having an event pony that could live on fresh air but in actual fact it is more work than anything! You constantly end up worrying about keeping them at a nice weight and you don’t want to have to constantly bucket feed them with loads of feed and loads of grass because grass just means that when he comes in after hours and hours, his huge lips dangle from his chin and he stares at me with those sleepy eyes as if to say “mum I’m really tired and I’m going to bed, don’t even bother trying to ride me”, well this isn’t what I was expecting having a slimmer horse would be like let me tell you!

So after receiving the ‘Conditioning cubes’ and ‘Original Ryegrass’ everything changed, By using only 1 cup full of the conditioning cubs in breakfast and tea, not only has Toms coat become extremely shiny, he has conditioned his body fully and it still keeps improving, don’t tell anyone but it is a nice feeling when people ask you if you have used show sheen on his body but in actual fact it’s just the feed!  In terms of the Ryegrass, well his energy levels have improved massive amounts and I really mean it! I took him to Epworth for a nice training round ready for the BE season, dressage was fluent and calm, popped a couple gently in the showjumping warm up.  I got in the ring, the bell rang and he was so enthusiastic, clearing the jumps at 1.50m for a fast, clear round.  Soon as we hit the cross country he was cool as a cucumber and when we arrived back he had enough energy to go another two rounds.

Speetley BE100 open is next Saturday and we are so very excited, we would love to know what everyone is doing this up and coming month with their horses and if the summer grass has created and balloon pony’s around your ends!

 So until the next blog and adventure have a great month everyone and keep at it.

Angel