I came across Mr. Orange back in 2010. I bought him as a jumping schoolmaster and to replace my old hunter. He had done some BE100's back when he was 6yrs old and had more recently been doing BSJA. His flatwork was shocking and he was more than a little bit sharp to hack but I have a fondness for slightly quirky, naughty horses and a secret passion for dressage so he seemed perfect. I had him on trial for a month and he took me round the BE90 course at Munstead hunter trials in the 2nd week. No chance he was going anywhere after that. I hadn't done SJ or XC higher than 2ft6 before this and had severely lost confidence in SJ after a nasty fall from my first horse resulted in 3days in the Royal Surrey Hospital.
So, we spent the winter with the poor horse trying to cope with the wibbling idiot on top attempting to get round a SJ course and with me trying to coerce the ginger giraffe into something resembling a dressage outline. We also did a bit of draghunting and he turned out to be the perfect hunter with a love for hedges and some form of brakes - good that worked out well given I had no idea if he'd ever hunted when I bought him as a hunter!
Somehow in April 2011 I found myself trotting down the centre line at Tweseldown unaffiliated 80 and even more amazingly coming home with a double clear and a handful of time faults for our first rosette. Well, that was it - the eventing bug was well and truly caught. Had an amazing season, coming 2nd in our first unaffiliated 90 at Mattingley, followed by 2nd at Borde Hill BE and finishing with a double clear round the BE100 at Munstead. We even qualified for a BE90 Regional Final but sadly the ginger giraffe wasn't quite under control and we were last after dressage on 42 - oops!
Another winter of hunting ensued, probably more hunting than the work that should have been going into the dressage but we had lots of fun!
Before I knew it, 2012 was upon us. We set off at BE90 again with the aim of consolidating before moving up to 100. Five top ten placings out of five seemed like a good start so we entered the 100 at Borde Hill, but disaster struck a few days before. He came in from the field with a fat leg. Once the initial swelling had subsided it became clear there was a specific swelling over his tendon which would go down with rest but even a gentle hack brought it back up. A scan revealed the possibility of a few tendon fibres being disrupted and a full tendon rehab program was recommended. He wasn't ever lame on it so it was hard to believe we had to stop everything but it wasn't worth the risk to continue.
Fast forward 8 long months of rehab and a lot of flatwork and we started 2013 with a bang. All the walking in straight lines had finally straightened him out and no jumping forced me to banish the ginger giraffe for once and for all. He led from start to finish at Tweseldown BE90 in March and finished on his dressage score of 29! Finally, a sub-30 dressage - I'd almost thought it impossible.
Sadly, disaster struck again all of a couple of weeks later. A mysterious left forelimb lameness which started off very subtle but got dramatically worse until he was completely non weight bearing yet neither the farrier nor my horse vet could find anything wrong. It was definitely in his foot but no sign of the cause. No abscess ever appeared so we suspected deep bruising - perhaps he had trodden on something at Tweseldown, or in the field - we'll never know. There ensued the most frustrating year ever. Just when we thought he'd come right, we'd up the work, all would be fine, run him and he'd go lame again. We played around with his shoeing, he had xrays and MRI scans which were remarkably normal yet something in his left fore continued to niggle. He won again at Tweseldown BE90 in July, this time on an amazing score of 24.5 but he was lame again the next day.
Made a decision then to have him shod by the remedial farrier at Liphook as his left fore foot was starting to look very strange. He made a fabulous difference in a handful of shoeings and we were given the all clear to go to the last BE90 Regionals in the area - BCA on 1st October. Our dressage was awful compared to what he is now capable of - I was convinced 32.5 would have us way down the leaderboard and wanted to go home but was persuaded to stay and SJ which he did brilliantly. Then found out we were in 7th place so went off and did his customary clear inside the time XC. Final results initially suggested we were going to stay in 7th - so near, yet so far, totally gutted. But then found out we had sneaked into 6th place by virtue of being 1second closer to the optimum time XC than the person on equal dressage score. Talk about by the skin of our teeth but we'd done it - we were qualified for the Grassroots Championships at Badminton! Lots of tears and smiles and general hysterics and I'm still not sure it's quite sunk in. I knew from the start he was good enough to get there but something always seemed to thwart us. Now just have my fingers and toes crossed we can make it there in one piece. Wishing someone would invent a bubble wrap onesie for accident prone orange horses!
A review of our winter training and plans for the 2014 season.
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