For those of you that follow the quick growing sport of Horseball, my sponsored rider Alex has done a little round up of her season!
2023 did not go as planned with the horses!
Started the year with putting Dream up for sale and Casper in full work ready to go tackle GB trials & training again to see if we could try and get on to the team for Italy.
All started well joining Melton Horseball ladies team driving up to melton and training playing in a Canadian and British mix team was exciting !
February came and we found out through vetting that Dream had sustained trauma to his eye nerve somehow although nothing was noticeable to him and he was happy (as he ever is!) we decided to keep him as he could be ridden and rent him to a friend for the season so we could ensure he was recovering.
First weekend in March, new venue in Leicester starting off to a great weekend with a tie and a loss with goals in both games on Casper feeling like the new team was starting to gel.
Coming home and sadly Casper came back not quite right the week following, in what after a lot of vet visits trying to work out what was wrong with him turned out to be a career ending injury and immediate retirement for Casper which was not how I wanted to end his last year playing and working but he’s now living his best life out, fat and fluffy.
So dream was taken back to get thrown into the team, having had an up and down year before going into a season missing Casper, Dream has more than stepped up. Few teething issues from the previous had to be ridden through and sorted which has helped our partnership so when he has his sassy moments no longer does that mean he has to stand on the side we can ride through.
He’s been so much fun and really put the joy back into a season that I thought would be tough.
We played the season in ladies having a great time with the ladies being competitive
And the playing as melton pro elite mixed playing against the men too was great fun, and improved my game more making us push harder.
Behind the scenes having a few horses through for training I quietly started looking at buying another to replace Casper, Dad finding a horse up in Cheshire a quick 4 hour drive up to see an ex racer. Faro 16.1hh 8 year old, gelding, finished racing August 2022 having a year off after running 12 times winning 38k just a handful of weeks into retraining I sat on him and just knew I needed him. He reminded me so much of my old horse Wellie who was super hot but had the brain like Casper. Within six weeks he was entered into his first tournament and other than a little excitement he was so good took everything in his stride and made me very excited to train and see how he plays next year!
The plan for 2024, is to improve in dressage Dream went out in September and came away winning his prelim so to keep improving and to get faro out to see how he goes.
Horseball wise the plan is to play Dream in ladies for the first season (3 weekends) and Faro in seconds to just train and really get him going well and hopefully move him up later in the season.