Have you ever got to your yard and found that your horses have decided to put themselves to bed? Well, show horse specialist Michelle Jones did one leisurely Sunday afternoon.
Michelle, who is known on the showing circuit for her talent at scouting out show horses of the future, had asked her son to go and check on the horses at her small yard in Carnforth in Lancashire.
“The horses were out in the field,” explains Michelle. “I got a text from my son and he said that there was a pile of shavings on the floor. He sent me a picture and I got the shock of my life. The funny thing is that it was much worse in real life!”
When Michelle got to the yard she found that her four-year-old Irish Draught mare had escaped from the field and cause chaos.
“She is a very big, very cheeky middleweight hunter type and she’s got a big personality,” continues Michelle. “In the space of a couple of hours she’d pushed the gate off, gone under the electric tape and decided to make herself a bed. There were 30 bags of shavings in total and she’d ripped every single one of them. It was absolutely pouring it down, too, so I couldn’t save much bedding and it took me a good few hours to clean it all up.”
“My gelding would have definitely just ripped up the one bag, but being the type of mare she is she went all out; all I kept thinking was thank god it wasn’t my haylage!”
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Former H&H showing editor and deputy features editor
Born and raised in the Lake District, Alex has grown up on the showing scene. She has qualified and competed ponies at the Royal International, Horse of the Year Show and Olympia and has first-hand knowledge of the current issues in the showing world as well as the horses, ponies and riders who compete in the sport. Alex joined H&H in January 2018 as showing editor, cementing its place as the leading equestrian publication for both showing reports and current showing news in the UK. She moved on in October 2024 to pursue other opportunities, but continues to write for us on a freelance basis.
