|
Georgia Darlington prepares for HOYS!
1st October 2015 | HOYS Blog Part 1
Hi I'm Georgia Darlington, I'm 16, and live in Surrey.
I can't believe Horse of The Year Show is only next week, it has come around so quickly! This year I have three classes at HOYS:
Tynwydd Good Friday (Smartie) who is a 13hand, Welsh Section C (who we actually bought through Horse Quest 4 years ago now!) She will be competing in the 133cm M&M Working Hunter Pony on Thursday. She qualified at South of England where she won and was reserve champion. I've actually had a very good year on her, she won at Royal International!
Conan Spartacus (Connor) is my 143cm Working Hunter Pony. We will be competing on Friday in the plaited 143cm WHP. We qualified for that class at Kent County show where we won and were Champion.
Beauty on the Bay (Beauty) who is owned by Sue and Peter Andrews and produced by Julia Ryde Rodgers, qualified at South of England where she won and was Reserve Champion. She will be competing on Saturday in the 148cm Show Pony class. Beauty has also had a brilliant year, she was 2nd at Royal International and got to strut her stuff in the main international arena!
In preparation for Horse of The Year Show, last weekend Connor and I went for two lessons with Ben Murphy (who helps me with Connor) at Milton Keynes Equestrian Centre. And we will be booking another lesson for us sometime this week, for our last preparations.
On Friday last week Smartie went for a cross country schooling session at Littleton Manor Equestrian Centre. We find cross county is very good preparation for her as she is a fat little cob and needs to watch her figure! And a whizz round a cross country course makes her look much trimmer!
This weekend Connor and Smartie both went to Addington Manor, where they held a HOYS preparation show which just had training stakes, which was a great thing to do as you could jump round any of the heights you likes and it was a lovely course built by Lisa Kelly. Smartie jumped two clear rounds in the 80cm and the 85cm, she was 3rd in the 80cm and won the 85cm. Connor had a pole in the 1m so didn't get a place, but jumped a fab clear in the 1m10 which he was 2nd in. So that turned out to be a very worthwhile day!
Because Beauty is stabled in Hampshire with Julia Ryde Rodgers, I went to Sparsholt College on Thursday where they ran a Horse of the year show preparation evening, to go and have a ride on her before next week. There they had very loud music, clapping and banging and even the white picket fence! So a proper HOYS preparation evening. Beauty went brilliantly.
Because Smartie usually keeps her coat nice for HOYS she hasn't been clipped, so she has had a heat lamp fitted in her stable and I am going round the yard at 9 o'clock every night to put extra rugs on her, to keep her nice and warm so her coat doesn't grow!!
Beauty also hasn't been clipped, but her coat looked amazing on Thursday.
On the other hand, Connor gets very hot when he works so he has been clipped, but being grey his coat still looks great so that's lucky!
Connor and Smartie both had the physiotherapist up today to give their backs one last check over and massage before next week, so hopefully they also feel ready for the week ahead!
Hopefully by the time we get to Horse of The Year Show all the preparation will have been done and let's hope it's worth it and we have a good show!
|