Equestrian Life April 2018 Issue

local events and reports
Alex Molesworth TAFFECHAN ROUGH DIAMOND (Winners Intro section C)
Brilliant Turnout for EMDG
PHOTOS BY TIM WILKINSON
The Organisers of the East Midlands
Dressage Group One Day Event
cannot believe how blessed they were
for the weekend at Osberton, run with
kind patronage of Mr GMT Foljambe and the
Foljambe family. The early spring precursor
to the eventing season; always the end of
February, is as popular as ever. It was bitterly
cold as the ‘beast of the East’ approached but
for both days the skies remained blue and the
sun graced everyone with its presence.
Over 350 combinations of runners and riders
had been accepted to compete over what
was a well built and testing SJ course by Julia
Hardy and a brilliantly built XC course by
Peter Wilson (in Mark Cavell’s absence this
year) and over superb ground and running
conditions.
Safe to say there were quite a few fresh and
feisty ponies on parade but overall it produced
some excellent performances in all sections
and a good early season pipe opener and
practice for the fast approaching eventing
season.
Huge thanks and admiration must go to Chloe
Cavell and her Team which helped to run the
ever popular weekend of eventing and which
was a testament to all the tireless enthusiasm
and hard work Chloe had put in both behind
the scenes and at the event itself.
Gracie can be very
anxious so the EMDG
One Day Event was ideal
to start to build her
confidence for this season”
Let’s hope this interlude of wintry weather
will blow out as fast as it blew in leaving the
equestrian world ready to embrace spring and
prepare for a successful season.
Shari Dobson got her season off to a great
start, taking top spot in Intro Section A with
Amazing Missgracie aka Gracie, an 8 year
old mare bred by Botters Sports Horses in
France by the Eventing stallion Yarlands
Summersong. Shari bought Gracie in October
2016 as a project to bring on with a view to
event her. She started Eventing in 2017 with
a few runs finishing the season with a 3rd at
Norton Disney in the BE90. Says Shari “Gracie
can be very anxious so the EMDG One Day
Event was ideal to start to build her confidence
for this season. I was delighted with her
behaviour and she was foot perfect all day!”
The plan for this season is to do one more
BE90 then try her first BE100 at Norton Disney
then aim for a Novice at the end of the season.
Sami Hodson and Micko Thriller, were in
contention after the dressage but four faults
in the show-jumping and a clear cross country
nonetheless put them into second place in the
same section. Says Sami “I bought him 6 years
ago as a scruffy little Irish cob that everybody
laughed at! We named him the 'bulldozer'
when we first had him as he would clatter
through everything! And never thought he
would be capable to do a decent dressage test,
we've grown together since I was 14 and even
though I had knowledge with horses I didn't
really 'know' a lot. Finally after a lot of hard
work we started to see that my scruffy little
Irish cob had a lot of potential”.
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