It is of course a cliché, and I am sorry if this post is a little long, but this past weekend showed me that dreams do come true if you just work hard enough.
Seven years ago my mare Corini gave birth to this little guy
He grew up and I was hoping that he would become an eventer one day. He did however not really show much interest in jumping fences where the landing was deeper that the take off. We tried for most of his fourth and fifth year to make him jump a bank higher than 80 cm to no success at all.
In the late summer when he was five I accepted that he probably wouldn’t ever become an eventer. You have to deal with the facts and this seemed to be one of them. It was a little hard at first, but he is a very good jumper and I could see myself doing some jumping on him or maybe sell him and buy a horse that wanted to be an eventer.
I the spring when he was six I did some jumping competitions with him, at one of them I had them stabled where he grew up and he ended up getting his leg caught in the fence. This meant two months with complete stable rest and a hock that doesn’t look very good because of constant swelling.
Over the winter I rode some dressage and jumping, not paying too much attention to him being busy with getting the other two ready for the season. When the season finally arrived Marco pulled a shoe three days before the first competition. I decided to bring Faraday and I didn’t regret it. It was his first CNC100 and he was clear but a little slow and ended just outside the placings. After that I needed to try again and the second time he was a little too fast and just outside the placings.
Fast forward to this past weekend. I had decided to ride Aristocrat in the CCI2*-L in Strzegom and didn’t feel Marco was ready for another Poland trip. This gave room for Faraday – and that turned out to be just the right choice. It wasn’t his best dressage or jumping. He wasn’t inside the time in the cross country, but he was one out of only five who jumped the fences clear in the CCI1*-intro and he ended up placed as number five. He has never jumped a coffin before and never jumped such a big fence into the water, but he just did it.
I am very proud of my big grey horse. Below there is some video from his trip to Strzegom.
Aristocrat had an unfortunate ending at the competition. He slid in a corner and I just fell off. Nothing dramatic and no harm, but very disappointing just jumping four fences out of 22.