Meet Foxy she’s a 3 year old Warmblood x Welsh mare. I’ve owned her for over a year now and I suppose she is what you would call an impulse buy (though rather an expensive one I will admit) as I didn’t set out to buy a horse when I got her even though she is exactly the type of horse I've always wanted.
Being so young I wasn’t able to start breaking her in until this year so we tried our luck at some local level inhand showing with great success getting many wins and championship placings. When it came to breaking her in I had afew setbacks finding a saddle that fitted, Being quite a chunky horse normal saddles slipped round her belly with the slightest movement and doing it without one wasn’t an option I discovered when I kept bouncing straight off her back (a problem Foxy quickly learnt she could take full advantage of meaning I spent more time bouncing off then staying on!) though
I eventually managed to find one designed specifically for horses of her build and after one more failed attempt at bouncing me off she took to her work like a pro progressing so quickly she is now backed, walking and trotting and getting better everyday but I’ll talk more about that another time. She is still competing this year and our big aim was the Royal Welsh show which we attended on Monday 23rd July. We went there with low expectations knowing the standard would be very high and not knowing how she would behave after her last show a few weeks before where she disgraced herself misbehaving in both her classes, She has quite a feisty attitude when she wants to!
We arrived Sunday night and after a mishap with a broken stable door got her settled in for the night. 5.30am Monday morning we went for a walk around the warm up arena by her ring to give her chance to take in the atmosphere. she had never been to anything that big before and I was expecting fireworks from her when she saw all the tents and everything else but I was pleasantly surprised by how easily she accepted it all only getting a little bit wound up near the end (though I think she was showing off for the Shetland pony stallion that turned up to share the warm-up with her after a while).
By 8.30am she was in the ring with the 14 others in her class and I could hardly watch expecting her to show her feisty side at any minute but it seems she set out to prove me wrong because she was perfectly behaved and got an amazing 4th place! I couldn’t have been more proud!!
She spent the rest of the day relaxing in her stable being thoroughly spoilt (I apologize to whoever had stable 502 after us because of the big hole she thought it would be fun to dig complete with water from her water bucket in front of the stable door! maybe she thought someone would steal her now she’s a big prize winner so decided to protect herself with a moat who knows? strange horse)
After such a huge success everyone is expecting big things from her next year when she starts her ridden competitive career though I think it might be a few years till we are back at the Royal Welsh, though again she might surprise me! I’ll keep you posted…
Zoe and Foxy
