Everyone should be able to be part of equestrianism and feel valued.

This is the message behind British Equestrian’s (BEF) new diversity and inclusion action plan, which it said is a “crucial step towards ensuring a more inclusive and equitable future for equestrian sport”. The move comes as universities and colleges have joined forces to increase diversity on equestrian and land-based courses.

The BEF plan was inspired by its “horses for all” research, and aims to “address barriers to taking part and promote diversity within British Equestrian, our member bodies and across the wider equestrian sector as well as British Equestrian as a business organisation”.

“Everyone, regardless of their background, should have the opportunity to participate in equestrianism and feel welcomed and valued,” said BEF head of participation and development Mandana Mehran Pour.

“Our plan is a vital step in ensuring that the equestrian sector continues to grow as an inclusive sport, where anyone can experience the incredible relationship that can be built between horse and human, as well as benefiting from the activity and environment.”

The strategy is aimed at creating, it states: “An equestrian community that is truly representative of society, where everyone feels valued, safe and a strong sense of belonging.”

The plan sets out the actions needed to achieve aims in six key areas: leadership and governance, data and diversity indicators, workforce, participation and collaboration, education and accountability, and communication and engagement.

“The horses for all research, which laid the foundation for this action plan, highlighted the need for improved accessibility, representation and opportunities for underrepresented groups within equestrianism,” Ms Mehran Pour said. “We are committed to working with our member bodies and the community to provide equitable opportunities for those who might be underrepresented in our sport.”

She added that the member bodies have been “actively engaged” and the BEF will work with them to develop their own plans.

A BEF spokesperson said: “British Equestrian invites the entire community to join in this journey towards a more inclusive future, where diversity is celebrated, and everyone has the opportunity to participate and succeed.”

As part of the drive to increase the diversity of UK equestrianism, a new guidebook has been released by BLOC (BERF Landex Outreach Collaboration), a collaboration between Hartpury University, Landex educational institutions and the British Ethnic Riders Federation.

“The project aims to enhance diversity and inclusivity in land-based education by opening the doors to more rural campuses, breaking down barriers to participation, and promoting fair access to higher education,” a Hartpury spokesperson said.

“It is hoped that the guide will encourage its target audience, community groups, to explore the outreach activities, engagement programmes and support services offered by members of the BLOC project.”

The guidebook covers the range of associated outreach activities and events across UK university centres.

Hartpury head of inclusivity Linda Greening said: “Historically, participation in subjects including agriculture, animal and equine sciences has been predominantly white, largely due to perceptions of applicants from the global majority.

“This project has sought to address some of those perceptions by inviting community groups to rural campuses to provide tailor-made experiences that go some way to address the myths surrounding study and career opportunities in these areas of study.”

The project also offers activities including subject taster days, campus tours, career pathway workshops, open days and equine events.

“We hope the activities run because of the BLOC guide will help to raise young people’s awareness of and interest in land-based studies, with the British Ethnic Riders Federation there specifically supporting those who choose to participate in equestrianism,” Ms Greening added.

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Need a list of places to stay near Hartpury University?

Hartpury University, which is situated just outside of Gloucester, hosts a number of big shows and championships throughout the year, including the Blue Chip Winter Showjumping Championships and the NAF Five Star Winter Championships, incorporating the Petplan Area Festival Championships.

We’ve put together a list of hotels and places to stay near Hartpury, including B&Bs and holiday lets at a range of price points to help you make the most of your visit. With popular events drawing a large number of competitors and spectators, accommodation often fills up fast. So, don’t hang around if you find something suitable. Accommodation is listed by driving distance from the venue (GL9 3BE).

• Hotels near Hartpury
• Guest houses, inns and B&Bs near Hartpury
• Holiday lets and apartments near Hartpury

Hotels near Hartpury

Guesthouses, inns and B&Bs near Hartpury

Holiday lets and apartments near Hartpury

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Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

A global “sleep intervention package” and quiet zones in lorry parks could help riders get enough quality sleep to improve competition safety – as could taking your own pillow to events.

Two studies, carried out at Hartpury International Horse Trials last year and via a questionnaire sent to 230 FEI-registered event riders, resulted in similar recommendations to “improve the health and wellbeing of athletes and staff in equestrian sport”.

Hartpury senior lecturer Emma Davies, the co-lead on both pieces of research, told H&H they were two distinct pieces of work but “the findings clearly mirror each other”.

“Sleep is something that had never been studied in riders, despite our early mornings and extra-curricular activity,” she said. “One of our students, Sandy Wilson, is doing his PhD on sleep in our athletes and he spoke to some of our staff and students about it, which inspired a conversation about possible research. That expanded into these studies and we now hope to take it further and look at other sleep behaviours in the equestrian community.”

One study involved riders at last year’s horse trials wearing advanced sleep trackers for the duration of the event, and completing a questionnaire covering sleep duration, sleep difficulty, natural times for sleep and demographics.

It found that the average duration of sleep was just over six hours, not varying significantly over the nights of the event.

The other questionnaire, completed by 230 eventers, also asked whether riders had help with horses and yard duties and about caffeine consumption. The findings were similar, also finding that sleep duration was affected by whether there was a pet sleeping in the same place.

“Taking your dog to an event might affect your sleep quality,” Ms Davies said. “But especially from the questionnaire, barriers to sleep were things like noise, from generators for example, not having your usual bed or an uncomfortable mattress; all things that might depend on finances and sleeping arrangements in the lorry.”

Ms Davies highlighted one key recommendation from both studies, to implement “quiet zones” in lorry parks at all competitions.

“Sleep is considered one of the most important elements; the most effective strategy available for elite athletes to support their performance,” she said. “Lack of sleep can mean issues with cognitive function; it can slow your ability to make decisions and impair fine motor skills. Tiny changes in aids can communicate different information to the horse. If riders going across country are potentially impaired by poor sleep, that could put them at risk.”

Ms Davies said the team wants to extend the work to amateur riders, as well as officials and others on the ground at competition, but there are steps all riders can take when staying at competitions.

These include turning off screens an hour before bed, taking your own pillow with you in the lorry, as well as ear plugs, and considering apps that aim to improve sleep by emitting white noise, although it is wise to become used to these at home first.

“This has been a real toe in the water,” Ms Davies said. “We don’t think this is just an athlete problem, it’s a horse person problem; sleep is defined by our commitment to our horses and there are things we can do in education to improve that. There’s a safety element for anyone involved with horses.”

Eventer Freddie Carden told H&H he was delighted to help with the project, by wearing the tracker at last summer’s competition, and that he was interested to find out how much sleep he had on each night.

“You know how us eventers love a party!” he said. “But although I went to the drinks on Saturday night, I still had a good sleep. It was worth doing to see if you actually sleep well at events, as stress can have a lot of impact.”

Freddie said he slept in his lorry for months as he was moving between yards so he is used to it but he could see how a change in bed might affect others’ sleep.

“I’d never thought about the impact of sleep before; I don’t think anyone really had,” he said. “I’d be interested to see if professionals sleep better at events than amateurs as they’re more used to it but it was definitely a good thing to do.”

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A study on male riders’ groin and seat comfort – or discomfort – could be a step towards improving the situation and helping remove barriers to participation.

A team from Hartpury University is conducting the research, following on from a study on bra design and fit and breast size, and related barriers to participation, in female riders.

“On the back of that, we had calls from some of our male students saying ‘Where’s our research, on our barriers and pain issues?’” Victoria Lewis, senior lecturer in equine science at Hartpury, told H&H.

“Two of our male undergraduates helped create this survey, looking at two areas; pain in the saddle, focusing on the groin-seat area, and looking at the prevalence of pain, and what activities may be increasing that or discomfort while riding.”

Take the survey

Ms Lewis said the research will cover whether any pain or discomfort has proved to put men off riding, and will look at types of underwear.

“As riders we don’t talk about this so we’ve got no idea of the potential scale of the problem, or maybe what people are doing to mitigate, and make riding more comfortable,” she said.

Initial responses to the questionnaire indicate that riding in a deeper-seated dressage saddle, and doing sitting trot, cause more pain than flatter saddles. Ms Lewis added that there is no underwear specifically designed for male riders, which could be something to come out of this project.

“There’s been a lot of research in cycling, on these exact issues, but none in riding,” she said. “We need to know about any issues, so we could potentially do more research, which might develop more comfortable, appropriate saddles, or other things that might come in to stop injuries.

“We need a better idea of what’s going on so we can hopefully develop in these areas, because we’re so far behind compared to other sports.”

Ms Lewis encouraged as many riders as possible to complete the survey, which is online now.

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Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

An “ambitious” study at Hartpury University will have benefits for horse welfare and performance, and rider training, it is hoped.

The aim of the research, led by Kathryn Nankervis and Russell MacKechnie-Guire, with the Society of Master Saddlers (SMS) research committee, is to produce industry-wide guidelines on saddle fit for the rider, to add to existing guidance on saddle fit for the horse.

“Despite widespread recognition that saddle fit in relation to the rider is an important consideration when fitting a saddle to the horse, and rider partnership, there remains no published guidance on rider-specific aspects,” a Hartpury spokesman said.

The team had looked at agreement between SMS saddle-fitters and coaches when assessing saddle fit, using a rider on a simulator. As an extension on 26 January, 60 horses and riders joined fitters and coaches at Hartpury to collect data.

“The aim was to once again find areas where there is a good level of agreement between saddle fitters and coaches when assessing saddle fit for the rider during real-world walk, trot and canter, in order to establish the most pertinent features relating to saddle fit,” the spokesman said.

Dissertation students will help research staff analyse the results, then findings will be presented to industry experts including the SMS research committee, for feedback before the study is published.

Dr Nankervis, associate professor at Hartpury, said: “This ambitious study sets out to provide evidence-based guidance developed in conjunction with the saddle-fitters and coaches tasked with working with all types of riders, from recreational novice riders to sporting professionals. Improving our understanding of how best to support riders to ride ‘in balance’ will have benefits not only for rider training but for the combined health, welfare and performance of horse and rider partnerships.

“We’re grateful to the Worshipful Company of Saddlers for funding the project and the SMS for their enthusiastic and supportive involvement throughout our research. I’d also like to thank the volunteers, all the coaches and fitters, and the horses and riders who are playing such a pivotal role in the research.”

It has also been announced that Gemma Penhorwood has been awarded a funded studentship to carry out a PhD at Hartpury University: “The interrelationship between optimal saddle fit and horse health, welfare, and performance”. The study is “set to revolutionise the understanding of saddle fit and its impact on equine wellbeing and performance and will add to the overall contribution from Hartpury in this area”, the spokesman said.

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Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

An investigation into how racehorses express positive emotions during interaction with humans should help people understand more about equine feelings – and potentially improve welfare and performance.

Researchers from Hartpury University will work with representatives of Charles Sturt University, Australia, and Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT) in New Zealand on the project.

The investigation will include using a study to assess equine welfare, and field-based experiments to “evaluate positive equine emotional state in controlled and industry conditions”. The ultimate aim is to “produce practical tools that will enable those working with horses to become more informed about how their horse is feeling – potentially improving welfare and performance outcomes”.

Hartpury associate professor Jane Williams said: “How ‘well’ a racehorse is doing is no longer judged simply on how fast it runs, how many races it wins, or how much prize money it earns, but also considers the horse’s health, their behaviour and interaction with humans.

“We must now consider their quality of life from the horse’s perspective, both during their careers in racing and beyond.”

The project is funded by the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) Equine Welfare Foundation, for which Hayley Randle, professor of equine science and acting head of the Charles Sturt school of agricultural, environmental and veterinary sciences, said she is grateful.

“Providing funding for this kind of research demonstrates the commitment of the HKJC to supporting rigorous research that seeks to provide objective evidence of positive emotions in horses,” she said.

“This is particularly important as the way that welfare is measured is changing. People are taking horses’ mental wellbeing much more seriously than ever before, and this means that the industry and everyone working in it has to as well.”

Natalie Waran, professor of one welfare at EIT in New Zealand, said the work will “contribute in a practical way to help advance our knowledge of how to advance the wellbeing of all horses used in leisure and sport”.

Cathrynne Henshall, who has just completed her PhD on the effect of stress on horses’ ability to learn at Charles Sturt, said it is important to have evidence-based tools to help understand whether a horse is having positive experiences in interactions with people, as well as if an experience is negative, which is what the study aims to find out.

World Horse Welfare CEO Roly Owers has championed the need for horses to have positive welfare experiences rather than just avoiding the negatives.

He told H&H: “We need to be mindful that a horse that is not experiencing discomfort is not necessarily content in their work. So it is very encouraging that there is this project looking into tools to measure positive emotions, such as pleasure and contentment, of horses in work.

“This could be illuminating in demonstrating that ridden horses can experience positive emotions, in addition to our obligations to ensuring we remove risks of them experiencing negative ones.”

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Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Britain’s first census of thoroughbreds will help traceability of former racehorses – and the sustainability of equestrian sport, it is hoped.

British racing’s Horse Welfare Board (HWB), with Hartpury University, is encouraging all owners of former racehorses to complete the census, which launched on 28 June, before 31 December.

The main aim is to help improve traceability of thoroughbreds after they have retired from racing, to “know where they are, throughout their lives”. It is part of the HWB’s five-year welfare strategy “A Life Well Lived”, which committed to improving the lives of all horses bred for racing, from birth until death. Those behind the project want to make connections and work with bodies across the industry.

“The nice thing about this is the message of the industry joining hands, beyond racing,” HWB programme director Helena Flynn told H&H. “This is something fundamentally different and bigger; there are a lot of surveys in the industry, but this is a census, and this is a call for action to be involved.”

The census, in partnership with Retraining of Racehorses and supported by World Horse Welfare and Weatherbys, also focuses on responsible ownership, including ensuring all horses’ passports and ownership details are up to date. This is ensured “meticulously” by Weatherbys but declines once horses retire and go into private ownership. This issue applies across the industry.

Participants will be asked for horses’ passport and microchip numbers, age, residence, second career and more, to “provide a robust view of the 2023 British retired racehorse population”.

Hartpury head of research Jane Williams said: “We’re delighted to be part of this proactive initiative as Hartpury is committed to supporting the sector to improve the quality of life of the horses we all love.

The census is an opportunity to understand more about lifetime care of thoroughbreds, generate evidence to safeguard against disease outbreaks, and show the huge benefits thoroughbreds bring to so many people.”

Take part in the census

All owners of former British-trained racehorses will be encouraged to register them, free, with RoR.

The charity’s managing director David Catlow said: “The ‘social licence’ for the use of horses in sport is under increasing scrutiny and what happens to former racehorses after they retire is identified as a particular concern. This is a significant step towards ensuring thoroughbreds enjoy a healthy and caring existence and will provide the racing industry with the relevant data to guide future decisions”.

Ms Flynn agreed, adding: “This is how we can play a part in ensuring the sustainability of this industry and sport. This is fundamental to that. Aftercare is an emotive subject, and if we can have greater understanding of that, it will make a huge difference.”

The census can be completed online, and at major equestrian events.

World Horse Welfare CEO Roly Owers said: “This is an excellent initiative along the road of improving traceability for all thoroughbreds. Full traceability lasts a lifetime as a horse bred for racing will always be a racehorse in the eyes of the public, and they rightly hold the industry responsible for them throughout their lives.

“There really is a collective responsibility to make this work towards the much-needed goal of full traceability, both for the sake of the horses and the reputation of the industry.”

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Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

SIX Shetland ponies were among those honoured for their contribution to the Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA) this year.

Chelsea (pictured), Crunchie, Hector, Smartie, Star and Freddo, of Wellow RDA group, were joint winners of the RDA horse or pony of the year award. Theirs were among the names announced as award winners at the 2022 RDA national championships at Hartpury (15–16 July).

Interim RDA chief executive Paul Ringer said: “These lovely ponies engage with every adult and child. They love the attention, and the patience they display is outstanding.”

Wellow RDA founder and head coach Anne Allen, who accepted the award and sash on the ponies’ behalf, said: “They’re a wonderful breed. They’re just the right height for grooming, and children and adults have had so much joy from them.”

Annie Horshaw, of Throstle Nest RDA, was named young volunteer of the year.

Mr Ringer said Annie has “played a key role in establishing a youth group at the centre, as well as developing fundraisers”.

“She has developed personally and shown resilience and determination,” he added. “As well as her volunteering, Annie has had successes at the national championships.”

The participant of the year award went to Mia Prowse, who has been at Abingdon group for 14 years. During this time, she has had success at the RDA virtual championships and was selected to represent Britain at the virtual para dressage World Championships, in which she took a win and a second.

“Her sportsmanship is second to none as she has become a role model and inspiration to younger members of her group,” said Mr Ringer, adding that Mia is also a keen fundraiser. Abingdon said of Mia that “it is rare to meet a participant who has such an acute, gracious understanding of the wider picture of what it means to be part of an RDA group.”

The RDA UK volunteer of the year is Pauline Harrison, north regional chair, who has “an incredibly positive and thoughtful attitude and outlook. Never shying away from a challenge, the support she gives to others is something to be admired and proud of.”

Ms Harrison added: “The only reason I’m here is because I’ve got a wonderful team behind me and fantastic groups. I’m so proud of all of them.”

Every year, the Worshipful Company of Saddlers donates a bespoke “jubilee” saddle to a group, this year to Keswick (Calvert Trust) RDA.

“This is a wonderful gift that’s always gratefully received,” Mr Ringer said.

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Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Former England footballer Michael Owen will be behind the wheel in the ride and drive competition at Bolesworth International Horse Show (29 June to 3 July) as part of a new partnership agreement.

The former England striker turned racehorse owner/breeder has signed a deal with Bolesworth Estate to attend a number of events in the Cheshire venue’s calendar in 2022.

Michael will be the “headline name” at Bolesworth International. He will join 20-time champion jockey AP McCoy and other celebrities from the sport and entertainment worlds competing in the ride and drive on “speed and style day” (30 June).

“Bolesworth is a fabulous location with a superb event calendar running across the year – where there really is something for everyone to enjoy,” said Michael.

“I am looking forward to the partnership and to be taking part in the first big event at Bolesworth this summer.

“There is real synergy between Bolesworth and [my] Manor House Stables and I hope through this partnership there will be the opportunity to showcase horse racing and racehorse ownership to a new and interested audience.”

Bolesworth Estate managing director Nina Barbour said that Michael, owner of nearby Manor House Stables, is a “familiar face” at Bolesworth.

“It is wonderful that we have now taken this a step further,” said Nina, who added that Michael’s daughter, dressage rider Gemma Owen – who has recently entered the Love Island villa – has competed at Bolesworth in the past.

“I am really looking forward to welcoming Michael to a host of events throughout the year ahead – and to be competing with him too in our big season launch event.”

Riding a Dream Academy secures funding and expansion

The Riding a Dream Academy has secured three years’ seed funding by the Racing Foundation to expand its programmes following a successful pilot year.

The academy supports young riders aged 14 to 18 from diverse ethnic backgrounds, under-represented communities and urban equestrian centres get involved in racing.

It currently runs the year-long Khadijah Mellah Scholarship for riders, plus a riding-based residential week at the British Racing School (BRS).

A parent of one of the academy students said that the positive impact it has had on her daughter’s life is “immeasurable”.

“Her lifelong dream of training as a jockey has been made possible by this opportunity and I hope she can continue to work towards her goals now that this door has opened,” the parent said. “It has literally changed her life in ways I could not have made possible – I am for ever grateful.”

To date, 60% of the academy’s applicants, and 73% of students in the pilot year, are from diverse ethnic backgrounds. This compares to just 2% of jockeys and between 3 and 5% of individuals who currently go on the industry’s entry-level foundation course.

The academy has also announced that it will add a non-riding residential week to its rosta, catering for large numbers applying who lacked access to horses and sufficient riding experience, as well as regional weeks to take the academy out into communities. All programmes will be delivered by the BRS team.

“Being able to provide amazing opportunities to talented riders and young people with an interest in horse racing from a wide range of communities is at the heart of the academy,” said co-founder Naomi Lawson, who will move from her role of director of communications at Great British Racing to lead the academy.

“We are excited to be able to expand our programmes and reach many more individuals thanks to the Racing Foundation’s funding. The pilot has demonstrated the impact that the academy can have in making racing more diverse and inclusive with our students already working in the industry, applying for the foundation course and taking up other opportunities within the sport.”

ITV Racing’s Oli Bell, who co-founded the academy, said they are “incredibly grateful” to the Racing Foundation for its “enduring support” of the academy and sharing their vision of a more diverse and inclusive sport.

“The foundation has been with us from the start when they helped to fund the original Riding A Dream documentary, which followed Khadijah Mellah’s incredible story [to become the first Muslim woman to participate – and win – a horse race in Britain], through to our pilot year,” he said.

“For us to be in the position to support many other young people from diverse and under-represented backgrounds through their funding is a fitting legacy to all that Khadijah achieved and will help racing identify and support diverse talent from across the country.”

Bates continues support of Riders Minds

Bates Saddles is extending its support of Riders Minds for the second year.

Riders Minds’ focus is on supporting the mental health of horse riders of all levels through online resources and a free, confidential 24-hour phone and text service.

“As part of our commitment to the equestrian community, Bates Saddles are delighted to support Riders Minds to raise awareness and promote the importance of mental health,” said Bates Saddles managing director Ron Bates.

“Hopefully, this initiative will help riders recognise warning signs, manage their stress and find help when needed.”

Riders Minds is also supported by British Equestrian, TheraPlate, and Charles Owen.

Boodles extends Gold Cup sponsorship after ‘epic’ 2022

Jeweller Boodles is extending its sponsorship of the Cheltenham Gold Cup at the Cheltenham Festival to 2023 and 2024.

Boodles managing director Michael Wainwright said the company’s board had “no hesitation” in extending its association following the success of the 2022 Gold Cup.

“After an epic build-up to this year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup and then a wonderful day for the race itself, capped by the charismatic Rachael Blackmore being the first female jockey to win it, the Boodles board had no hesitation in extending our association by another two years,” he said.

“The whole experience was fabulous exposure for Boodles, and for me personally it provided one of the best days of my life.”

Boodles is also extending its sponsorship of the Boodles juvenile handicap hurdle at the Festival, which it has supported since 2018, for a further two years and gains further sponsorship rights across the Jockey Club.

Ian Renton, managing director for Cheltenham racecourse and the Jockey Club’s west region, said: “I am thrilled that Boodles has decided to further extend its relationship with the Festival by agreeing to sponsor the next two renewals of the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

“After enjoying a record attendance this year, the 2023 running of the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup takes place on St Patrick’s Day and the great race celebrates its centenary in 2024, so I am sure there are some truly memorable days ahead.

“Boodles is now approaching a decade of involvement with the Festival and hopefully has reaped the benefits of its association with the four biggest days in jump racing.

“Coverage of the Festival seems to start earlier and be more extensive with each passing year and it was a milestone moment this year when the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup received its first broadcast on national television in the USA.

“We look forward to continuing to work alongside the team at Boodles with their tremendous passion and commitment as well all our other partners, both old and new, in the coming times ahead.”

NAF supports Hartpury summer fixtures

NAF is continuing its support of major summer equestrian fixtures at Hartpury University and College this year.

The supplement brand returns as title sponsor of Hartpury’s Festival of Dressage (5-10 July), Showjumping Spectacular (26-29 June) and the international horse trials (10-14 August).

Eloise Chugg-Martin, UK sponsorship and events manager for NAF, said the fixtures are “such a principal part of our events calendar”.

“We’re thrilled to welcome competitors new and returning, along with spectators, and are looking forward to a jam-packed summer of quality sport around Hartpury’s impressive venue,” she said.

Phillip Cheetham, equine director at Hartpury, added that NAF is a “hugely important part of the Hartpury family and is synonymous with equestrianism at Hartpury”.

“It’s a privilege to be aligned with a brand that is instantly recognisable and trusted by so many equestrians, as well as being a leading champion of clean sport,” he said.

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A RIDER who started a clothing brand aged 17 hopes her success will encourage more people of colour into equestrianism – as work continues to increase the industry’s diversity.

Caroline Ogunshola (pictured, left) was 17 when she founded Lusso Equestrian Apparel, which grew to a five-figure turnover in its first year.

Caroline told H&H she started riding aged 10, near her home in London.

“I was very lucky; it cost £8 for a weekend, so you’d get there at 9am, help out and ride for half an hour. Any more than that and I couldn’t have done it,” she said, adding that horses had to take a back seat while she studied for her A levels and then a business admin apprenticeship.

“But horses have always been a big part of my life and during the first lockdown, I started watching things like Heartland,” she said. “It made me want to start again but everywhere was closed so I decided to use my interest to start a business, just to reconnect.”

Caroline watched countless YouTube videos and used money she had saved for a car, doing everything from creating her logo to designing her website.

“My driving test kept being cancelled because of Covid; it was like everything aligned,” she said. “I had no design experience, just thought about what I wanted and was needed, and it was good riding leggings, which were comfortable. My brand is about a luxury feel without the price tag, comfort and, most importantly, trying to build a community.”

Caroline said once she had created her products, she needed pictures, but did not want to model herself.

“You don’t see many people of colour riding, and I thought people might judge, and think I didn’t know what I was doing, or my clothes were no good,” she said. “I tried to hide that the person behind it was a person of colour.

“Then I read about Khadijah [Mellah] and found Ebony Horse Club, and thought, ‘This is exactly what’s needed.’ I realised I wasn’t helping by doing what I was doing.”

Caroline says people are “taken aback” by the fact she rides, but she wants to encourage more people of colour into the industry, into riding and also careers.

“I think people want to be involved but think they can’t as they don’t see others who look like them,” she said. “My video did start a conversation and I think there need to be more, even if they’re uncomfortable.”

Caroline hopes imagery such as hers, using herself and her sister Toni, who also rides (pictured, right), will help.

“I hope other people will see it and think, ‘I can do that,’” she said. “I’m proud to have become a business owner and even more proud to pave the way for other ethnic minorities to enter this industry.”

Linda Greening, head of inclusivity at Hartpury University, spoke on diversity in relation to the staffing crisis at the National Equine Forum (3 March) as part of her aim to “keep inclusivity on the agenda”.

She told H&H of recent developments, including British Equestrian’s (BEF) programme for coaches in urban riding schools and its invitation to tender for research to help “understand the barriers to making equestrian activity more inclusive and representative of the UK population”.

She added that joint work between land-based colleges to encourage people from under-represented communities into the industry had stalled somewhat owing to a Government change in focus to outreach teams going into schools, and efforts to maintain momentum are ongoing.

Miss Greening agreed raising awareness of the range of jobs in the industry, as well as riding, is key, adding that she has tendered for some research on increasing diversity in equestrian post-graduate studies, for example.

“There’s definitely movement and momentum,” she said. “Everyone is mobilising, which is really good, and we’ve got to keep it on the agenda so people keep talking about it.”

Miss Greening added that the industry has to be a welcome place for all in it.

BEF head of participation Mandana Mehran Pour told H&H the BEF is “committed to making equestrianism more inclusive and accessible”, and continues to focus on equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). She said the research open for tender, on behalf of BEF members, focuses on people from ethnically diverse communities and low socio-economic backgrounds.

“The outcome will help us shape an EDI strategy, to be developed with federation members,” she said. “We are all committed to make our sport diverse, inclusive, and welcoming to people from all backgrounds. The BEF is taking leadership in this area on behalf of the federation, and we’re also linked with the British Horseracing Authority and will collaborate more closely with it and its stakeholders.”

Ms Mehran Pour agreed that the focus is not just on riding but the huge range of activities people can be involved in within equestrianism, “from volunteering at a riding school or event to the career opportunities available”, adding that a report is also due to be released on diversity within the BEF workforce.

She said the Government is encouraging sporting governing bodies to address diversity, and people’s experiences in sports, and that the BEF will commit to “harness a culture of everyday inclusion to enable us to make real headway towards tackling inequalities within our ecosystem”.

The BEF also plans to carry out research aiming to develop urban equestrianism, working with urban riding schools.

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An “exciting” industry-wide saddlery survey has been launched, with the aim of improving horse welfare, comfort and performance.

Hartpury University’s equestrian performance research centre is aiming to investigate equestrian professionals’ experiences and opinions on saddlery fit for horse and rider.

The Hartpury research team comprises equestrian performance research centre lead Kathryn Nankervis, Russell Mackechnie-Guire of Centaur Biomechanics and Hartpury head of research Jane Williams, working with colleagues from the Society of Master Saddlers. The team is inviting professionals from a wide variety of areas, including vets, physiotherapists, coaches, saddle-fitters, equine dental technicians and farriers, to take part in the survey.

Take the survey online

Dr Nankervis said: “This research is hugely important as part of a wider goal in improving horse welfare, comfort and performance through better fitting saddlery. The results will be used by the Society of Master Saddlers, and we’d encourage everyone who is working in the field to take part in the survey.”

The team said the aim of the three-part questionnaire is to investigate how saddlery fit issues feature in an individual’s role as an equestrian professional supporting horse-rider partnerships, looking at factors that influence referrals to other professionals, and some common issues encountered when fitting tack.

“The survey takes around 10 minutes to complete, depending on the profession of the person completing it and all responses are totally anonymous,” Dr Nankervis said.

“By taking part, you’ll be contributing to an essential piece of research, helping to improve communications and working practice within the industry.”

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Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

A new postgraduate equitation science degree will help graduates influence the development of ethical training policies and methods that “ultimately challenge the status quo”.

Hartpury University, which hosted the International Society for Equitation Science (ISES) conference 2022 this year, developed the course to “meet emerging equestrian challenges in both training and competition environments”.

H&H has reported on the need for horse sport to keep its social licence to operate — essentially the public acceptance of involving horses in sport — and that part of this is demonstrating the sound ethical foundations of training and decision-making.

The new course will use equine learning theory as a basis for “successful and ethical equitation, considering human competencies and their impact on horse welfare and wellbeing”. Human welfare will also be key, emphasising the unique relationship between human and horse.

Hartpury University head of equine Catherine Porter said: “We’re very excited to be adding the MSc equitation science degree to our postgraduate equine roster for 2022, at a time when horse and rider welfare is at the forefront of our industry.

“The course provides an exciting opportunity for students to focus on the practical application of equitation science in the real world, investigating the benefits of connection for both parties and developing the skills needed to promote positive affective states.

“The programme will include a number of practical sessions and demonstrations to facilitate first-hand experience of applied equitation science and learning theory.”

The course is one of five new postgraduate degrees being offered by Hartpury, where research is carried out also at PhD and undergraduate levels, which informs industry practice and the curriculum.

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Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Carl Hester has described being awarded an honorary degree from Hartpury University a “big honour”.

“I was supposed to receive it last year but of course I couldn’t [owing to the pandemic], so I somewhat forgot about it. It was a big honour to finally get it,” Carl told H&H, after receiving the honorary bachelor of science degree with honours. 

He was awarded the honours in “acknowledgement of [his] outstanding achievements in the equestrian field and for [his] long-standing relationship with Hartpury”. 

In a glittering dressage career that spans more than 20 years, Carl Hester has amassed 13 championship medals, including team gold and double individual silver at the European Championships in 2011 as well as team gold at the London Olympics in 2012 with Uthopia. In 2021, Carl was a member of the British bronze medal-winning Olympic team riding En Vogue, and the pair also went on to help claim team silver for Britain at the European Championships in September. 

“Being awarded the honorary degree was very nice but it was a bit scary actually – I had to go to Gloucester Cathedral and the principal asked me to get up in the pulpit and make a speech,” said Carl, whose base, near Newent in Gloucestershire, is around 10 miles from Hartpury.

“I was a bit unprepared but it was a good opportunity for me to thank Hartpury, particularly for the way they allow their facilities to be used for all disciplines.

“I never look forward to public speaking but I did my best and feel very humbled to receive it.”

“I’m not sure if you can really call me Dr Hester now though,” he joked.

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Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

The author of a study looking into rider weight and equine back pain hopes to find out whether there is a correlation between the two, and help inform future research.

Elysia Jones, who is studying equine sports coaching at Hartpury University, is asking as many riders as possible to complete her study, which will inform her dissertation.

She hopes to secure 1,000 responses to her questionnaire, which investigates how UK horse owners perceive the causes of back problems in their horses.

“This will help create an understanding of the factors that create back pain, how significantly rider weight influences back pain, and how owners recognise the cause of the problem,” she said. “Hopefully, this research can act as a platform for future studies to grasp a better understanding of how back pain is established and the impact of rider weight in true circumstances.”

Complete the questionnaire here

Elysia told H&H the topic of rider weight and its effect on horses is a taboo one, and one that interests her.

“It’s not something people like to go into too much, it’s very controversial,” she said.

The survey asks about respondents’ horses, and themselves, including questions on rider experience, saddle fit and the horse’s work, to investigate a range of different causes of back pain.

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Subscribe to Horse & Hound magazine today – and enjoy unlimited website access all year round

“I’ve had about 120 responses so far and it’s an even split on whether people get their saddles fitted just to the horse, or to themselves as well, which is a big issue,” she said.

“My objectives are to find out the prevalence of back pain in UK horses, to find out what owners think causes it and to find out if there’s a correlation between rider weight and equine back pain.

“In my own view, up to a certain weight ratio, rider experience comes into play too but if a rider’s too heavy, you can’t change that; other studies have shown horses’ backs don’t work in the right way [under a too-heavy rider]. But I’m not saying rider weight is causing more back pain; I want to see what the results tell me.”

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade to access our H&H Plus online service which brings you breaking news as it happens as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

An equestrian feed company founder who won a prestigious Black British Business Award hopes her success will inspire BAME people across the industry. H&H spoke to her, and others, about progress towards greater diversity in equestrianism

AN equestrian entrepreneur hopes her recent prestigious award will help inspire other young BAME people into all areas of the industry.

Sandra Murphy, founder and managing director of Equidiet UK, was announced as the consumer and luxury senior leader winner of the Black British Business Awards, on 30 October.

Ms Murphy, whose brand has a European patent, making her the first Black woman to secure such a patent in the UK, is also the founder of the BAME Equine and Rural Activities Focus Group (BERF), which aims to “support, encourage, inspire, educate and progress members of the BAME community in all disciplines, all areas of the equine industry and all rural activities”.

Ms Murphy told H&H she hopes her win will inspire others.

“I was very excited about the win; there were a lot of dynamic, entrepreneurial people in that category, and the award recognises how hard we’ve worked,” she said.

“This represents achievement by a Black female and a Black business, and the fact it’s a Black woman in the equestrian industry, I hope will act as a platform.

“I want to inspire Black women, and young Black business people, and those in the equestrian industry. Not just riding – in all areas.”

Ms Murphy says she has struggled to be accepted in the industry, but that this award is timely, with greater awareness of the drive to increase diversity.

“With Black History Month [in October] and the Black Lives Matter movement, it’s come at the right time for people to be more aware of the issues,” she said. “The more we can keep the momentum up, the better.

“There’s still a chasm but I want to see an overspill of BAME riders – we’ve been discovering some phenomenal talent – but I’d like to see that become the norm.”

Linda Greening, head of inclusivity at Hartpury University and Hartpury College, has joined the BERF group.

She told H&H it is important to address all issues around minorities.

“There are so many barriers to getting into equestrianism, and ethnicity definitely shouldn’t be one of them,” she said. “At Hartpury, we recognise we have a low proportion of BAME students across the board, specifically in equine, and are racking our brains on how to address that.”

Ms Greening said a commitment to working in the community and raising awareness of what the college can offer is one approach, but she believes now is an “exciting time” for equestrianism.

“It’s an opportunity to reflect as an industry on what’s happening and why, but momentum is building,” she said, adding that being a member of the BERF group has led her to realise the traction the movement has gained.

“This isn’t an activist movement, it’s passive and peaceful; people wanting to raise awareness and remove barriers to people getting into equestrianism and progressing, across the industry,” she said. “I’m so pleased Sandra has won this award; we recognise the importance of positive role models, but it also helps the rest of the industry recognise that these people exist, and it’s the norm.”

Jess Powell, a mixed heritage BERF member, doctor and lifelong rider, who team chases and follows hounds on her horse Mojo, told H&H she grew up in rural North Yorkshire, and was “always the only brown person, at school or doing anything”, but her equestrian experiences have been largely positive.

“There was snobbery at Pony Club from parents about our cheap ponies, but that was the same for everyone!” she said. “I’ve had more surprise that I’m a female doctor than because I’m a brown person riding a horse.”

Mrs Powell said she believes a big issue is the urban-rural divide, as most rural communities are predominantly white, and there is less access to riding in cities.

“I think it’s very much a town-country and a cultural thing, more than a colour thing, in my experience,” she said. “When I lived in London, I was more into athletics and rugby, because they were accessible; there aren’t ponies in cities, whereas I grew up with them.

“I think to be more inclusive, we’ve got to get city kids out playing with ponies, whatever their colour. Someone said to me the other day the industry has had a bit of a beating over diversity, but it’s not all negative news.”

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Hartpury has announced a new partnership with three organisations to carry out industry-driven research and promote equine education.

The further education provider has joined with the Society of Master Saddlers, the Worshipful Company of Loriners and the Worshipful Company of Saddlers in the interest of training, education and research into horse-human interactions and partnerships.

They will also work together to help provide British equestrians with the latest equipment, and access to registered, qualified saddlery fitters.

“We’re absolutely passionate about ensuring the highest standard of horse welfare across our various activities at Hartpury,” said Rosie Scott-Ward, Hartpury University’s pro vice-chancellor.

“Our new partnership will help to advance training, education and research into horse-human interaction. It will also provide our students with access to experienced industry professionals and help them to stay informed about the latest

developments ahead of a possible career within the industry.”

Hazel Morley, chief executive of the Society of Master Saddlers (SMS), added this year marks the 25th anniversary of the society’s saddle-fitting training, so is “especially apt” it is embarking on this partnership.

“We look forward to developing industry-led research projects with Hartpury staff and students, supported by our members, which will have application and relevance to all equine professionals,” she said.

“We are also delighted to be able to offer Hartpury students the very best in saddle- and bridle-fitting awareness training, and we hope, for some of them, an exciting career path in the saddlery industry.

“Our members too will benefit from the excellent training available from Hartpury, ensuring that SMS-qualified saddle and bridle fitters remain the best in the world.”

John Oates Horseboxes

The British horsebox manufacturer has announced a new partnership with dressage legend Carl Hester.

“Safety and comfort for my horses when travelling is critical to me as a rider, trainer and owner,” said Carl.

“The experience in dealing with Michael [Oates Haddock] and his team has been exceptional, as well as the opportunity to witness first-hand their skill and years of experience as a coachbuilder. I look forward to working with them.”

A spokesman for John Oates Horseboxes added: “As with all of our customers, Carl’s new 3.5 tonne horsebox has been designed in partnership with both Carl and his groom, Alan Davies, and we very much look forward to seeing it being used to safely transport Carl’s team of horses on a day-to-day basis and to competition venues.”

Jump4Joy

The leading showjump manufacturer has signed a new sponsorship agreement with event rider and trainer Callum Banfield, of Banfield Equestrian in Gloucestershire.

“We are proud to be supporting Callum, who is developing an exciting business hosting year-round training clinics with top-class riders and coaches for riders of all ability to enjoy,” said Jump4Joy managing director Nigel Underwood.

“They will now be able to make use of our showjumps and cross-country training equipment when they visit Callum in the beautiful surroundings of his Gloucestershire venue.”

Synovium Horse Health

Young British dressage riders Chloe Vell and Jade Ellery have signed sponsorship deals with the Dutch veterinary horse supplement brand.

“With so many horse supplements on the market today it can be extremely confusing to know what to feed and what to trust,” said Synovium UK director Vicky Hipkins.

“Synovium has been developed on scientific evidence and undergoes strict veterinary trials in all equestrian disciplines to guarantee effectiveness and quality.

“As the Synovium brand develops and grows in the UK, we are delighted to welcome both Chloe and Jade to our team.”

Article continues below…

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Nexgen

The new young horse series has attracted sponsorship from Bailey’s Horse Feeds among others.

The series, which started on 31 July, is for four-, five- and six-year-olds in the Olympic disciplines, with a final at Hickstead on 15-16 September.

There is a total prize fund across the series of £15,000.

Other sponsors include Custom Saddlery, Coldstream Equestrian and Elite Stallions.

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade to access our H&H Plus online service which brings you breaking news as it happens as well as other benefits.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Are you wondering how you’re going to land your dream job in the equestrian industry when you leave college or university? Horse & Hound finds out how to make yourself as employable as possible

1. Meet your careers adviser

Standing out from the crowd when applying for a job is vital in the current climate, and making the most of the resources at college is a great place to start.

One such resource is the college’s careers adviser, who will discuss career options, help find work experience placements, and assist with applying for jobs.

“For those undecided about their career path, impartial careers guidance is available from the careers office, in addition to the advice and support available from academic staff,” says Royal Agricultural University’s (RAU) Dr Andrew Hemmings, head of the centre for equine management and science.

“Students also have access to an online job portal, and there is considerable enterprise support available for students interested in self-employment on our website.”

2. Make the most of lecture demonstrations and talks from industry representatives

Alongside access to a careers advisor, students are also exposed to a variety of industry representatives through lecture demonstrations and talks.

“We regularly invite speakers to come and talk to our students. For instance, the British Grooms Association came in recently to talk about opportunities and give information about employment practices and regulations,” explains Mark Yates, careers coordinator at Writtle University College in Essex.

At Hadlow College, students have enjoyed lecture demos from the likes of Ben Maher, Mary and Emily King, Ben Hobday and Pammy Hutton, to name a few.

“We hold frequent lecture demonstrations as well as regular clinics with national and international trainers and riders, and put on careers events with a wide range of industry experts and further training providers,” says Sonia Wilkes, head of faculty for equine and business at Hadlow College.

“Alongside lectures from top riders, we offer tasters in horseball and mounted games along with cross-country clinics with Caroline Moore to help inspire those students wishing to progress in their own riding abilities and competitions,” adds Philippa Gerrard, head 
of further education sport, animal welfare 
and equine at Warwickshire’s Moreton 
Morrell campus.

3. Tap into your college’s alumni network

“Our students take advantage of a network 25+ years in the making with some high-profile alumni, such as Tim Hadaway,” RAU’s Dr Hemmings says. “Students are encouraged to learn good networking skills as contacts mean everything in the equine industry.”

Careers events are the perfect way to find out more about a career, and network with industry representatives.

“Our FILM [Faculty Industry Liaison Meeting] events promote effective development of our programmes in line with current industry feedback and requirements,” explains Jenny Paddison, acting higher education team leader, equine, and programme leader for BSc (hons) equine sports therapy and rehabilitation at at Hadlow College.

“They give us the chance to build strong relationships between our lecturing team and students, and local equestrian businesses. By giving industries the opportunity to see the students’ work and practical skills, the representatives can see how students’ skills are developed and the high standards that they meet. It’s also an excellent networking opportunity, and builds confidence and pride.”

4. Embrace hands-on experience

Many equestrian colleges centre around working yards, which are the perfect environments for students to gain hands-on experience.

“Yard duties encourage students to develop not only excellent practical husbandry skills, but also promote effective communication, teamwork, organisation, timekeeping and dedication,” explains Jenny Paddison. “Duties prepare students for groom, yard manager and stud-hand roles, but the wider employability skills are transferable to many more jobs.”

One such student to benefit from in-house experience is Tom Gilbert, who after studying an extended diploma in horse management at Hadlow and working part time on their yard, took up a full-time position as technical instructor.

“I did my work experience on a local showjumping yard, which led me to pursue a role with Ben Maher after completing my course,” says Tom. “After 18 months at Ben’s, I saw the advert for technical instructor at Hadlow and I started in October last year. 
I want to become a lecturer so it is the perfect stepping stone.”

At Hartpury, students have the opportunity to assist with the running of shows, and gain experience working in the equine therapy centre, rider performance centre, and marketing and communications department.

Former H&H blogger Fizz Marshall studied BSc equine science at Hartpury, during which time she volunteered at the equine therapy centre.

“Volunteering at the equine therapy centre then led to me earning a graduate assistantship, a type of working scholarship,” explains Fizz. “The assistantship allowed me to undertake an MA in equine business management, which has set up various aspects of my career so far. I was then asked to go back to the equine therapy centre as assistant manager, and was promoted to centre manager four years later. The work experience programme at Hartpury allowed me to gain a huge array of skills and get a foot in the door.”

5. Carefully plan your work placement

Colleges assist students in securing work experience placements in order to enhance their industry experience.

Hartpury approves around 150 equine work placements each year, including with local employers such as NAF, Tweenhills Stud, Carl Hester, and local livery and competition yards.

At RAU, all degrees feature a 20-week work placement in the industry.

“It is critical for students’ employability that they develop a good understanding of the equine sector, including opportunities available, and a good commercial awareness of the current challenges facing the industry,” says Dr Hemmings. “The industry placement is an excellent opportunity to do this, with many students making important contacts during this time which can lead to full-time employment after graduation.”

Former Warwickshire College student Annabel Willis landed herself a full-time job at Sir Mark Prescott’s Flat racing yard in Newmarket following a four-week work placement there in her second year of a level three extended diploma in horse management.

“I wanted my four-week work placement to count, so jumped at the opportunity to work with Sir Mark,” said Annabel. “I’m now there full time, and watching and learning from the best. I know that if I get a good reference from Sir Mark Prescott, it’ll be like gold dust.”

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6. Are there any other qualifications you could be getting alongside your course?

Alongside their courses, students have opportunities to gain further qualifications such as British Horse Society exams, and certificates in health and safety, first aid and project management.

“Consultation with industry revealed that alongside a degree and work experience, the completion of industry-relevant short courses was considered exceptionally valuable,” Rosie Scott-Ward, vice-principal and dean at Hartpury College advises.

“Employers felt that evidence of these on an application form would significantly increase the likelihood of gaining an interview. To support this, Hartpury committed over £100,000 in 2016/17 to support students in gaining such certifications.”

7. Sign up to extracurricular activities

RAU students are encouraged to take part in extracurricular activities including membership of sports teams, helping to run other clubs, and positions on the student union and student ambassador roles, all of which can help to develop key employment 
skills.

Don’t miss the careers and training special in the 10 January 2019 issue of Horse & Hound magazine

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Valegro wowed his fans in a special guest appearance at Hartpury Festival of Dressage on Saturday (8 July).

The record-breaking dressage superstar, ridden by Charlotte Dujardin, treated the packed stands to a demonstration during the evening gala at the Gloucestershire venue.

Top international judge Stephen Clarke narrated the display, before Charlotte and Valegro danced out to Tina Turner’s Simply The Best.

“It really was so special to have him there with us, because he’ll always be our horse in the million that made everything we ever dreamed of come true,” Charlotte wrote on her Facebook page.

“As always, he enjoyed meeting some of his fans in the morning and then, true to form, loved performing in the main arena at night and showing off during all of the applause from the crowd.

“Whilst not competition fit, given his long lazy days in the field, he is still ridden by me three times a week, hacked, bit of jumping and just generally enjoying life and all the fuss.”

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She added that he reminded everyone on Saturday why “he is every inch a superstar”.

“It still makes me emotional that he still gives me so much when I ask of him,” said Charlotte.

“It’s a privilege to still be able to enjoy him during his retirement and I cherish every day of being with this special horse.”

Valegro officially retired at Olympia last year and has been enjoying an active retirement at home.

A picture of him popping a jump at home last month, shared on Facebook by co-owner Carl Hester, has received more than 13,000 likes and 1,600 shares.

“He loves it. It’s just another string to his bow and it keeps the weight off his little belly,” Carl told H&H at the time.

For all the latest news analysis, competition reports, interviews, features and much more, don’t miss Horse & Hound magazine, on sale every Thursday

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It’s with a twinge of sadness that I tell you that this is the last blog I will be writing for Horse & Hound! It’s been almost two years to the day since I started penning all things therapy, along with a few other bits and pieces that have happened along the way. I am taking on some new professional challenges hence why this has to come to an end, but I have absolutely loved being given the chance to share life here at the Equine Therapy Centre at Hartpury.

I came back to Hartpury to run the Therapy Centre in September 2010 — having been a student here previously — and have learned so much over the past six years.

During this time I have been asked “How do you get into therapy?” on very many occasions and have come to realise is that working in equine therapy isn’t really a career you arrive at via a single path for someone like me, who is neither a vet nor a qualified therapist. For me, and my team, therapy is actually just a number of factors that you need to take care of to make a horse better. This got me thinking as to the most influential things in successfully bringing a horse back to full work and health as far as I see them, so here’s the hotlist:

• Diagnosis – no horse is admitted to us without at least a partial diagnosis (if not a full one) as to the cause of their issues (we may have a partial diagnosis when we feel the work or treatment given will lead to reaching a full diagnosis as we go through the process). If you don’t diagnose the cause then you are treating the symptoms which will not always lead to a full recovery. Sometimes the vets won’t be able to find the cause and thus have to treat the symptoms but finding the former is always the ideal situation.
• Have a good relationship with your vet – the vet is the one who calls the shots and you need to be able to talk to him or her to report both good responses to treatment and/or exercise as well problems or set-backs; open lines of communication are key to ensure that the horse continues to progress well.
• Expectation – you need to express what your expectations in terms of what job you want the horse to be able to do at the end of the rehabilitation process; ie the training and competition demands placed on an Olympic showjumper will clearly be different to those of a horse who is expected to hack 4 times per week. This will often affect treatment options.
• Tailor-made exercise – although many horses follow similar programmes when coming in to us for the same condition (eg post-kissing spine surgery), I don’t believe in a one size fits all approach to rehab. You need to understand the horse as a whole, including its confirmation, posture and temperament as this will have an effect on the type of exercise and kit required to generate the most positive response.
• The role of the therapist – having a therapist who works on veterinary referral and understands your horse in an overall context is so important for me. They need to be able to help keep your horse comfortable, but they should also understand the functional aspects of an injury and how it impacts on the horse as a whole. A good therapist sees the whole horse and doesn’t treat in isolation to the rest of the body.
• Feet – “No foot no horse”: never a truer word said! 90% of horses referred to us for rehabilitation need at least some rebalancing of their feet. Good shoeing can make a horse stand and move differently and is the basis of everything we do. Sharing knowledge with your farrier is really important, the more they know about any issues you’re having, the better they can shoe your horse. Don’t be afraid to be look at your horse’s shoeing objectively, and talk to your farrier if you feel there is a problem.
• Nutrition – feeding horses is a real art form as well as a science and I try to keep it pretty simple. Our most frequent challenge is having to give horses enough in their feed to build muscle, without blowing their tops. We review their feeding at will and weigh the horses each week to ensure we’re always getting it right.
• Details – I think the phrase ‘look after the little things and the big things will look after themselves’ is my epitaph in waiting, so convinced am I of the importance of details. I am fanatical about getting all of the little things right as far as humanly possible; from ensuring the horses are warm/cool enough, to grooming and washing off properly, to detecting heat or swelling in a leg at the first opportunity. Working on the details allows you to stop a potentially big problem in its tracks.

Rapid developments

The past six years have also seen rapid developments and changes both for us as a business and within the veterinary and therapy industry generally. Diagnostics have progressed with the dawn of MRI capable of imaging stifles and improved X-ray and scanning equipment available amongst other technological advances.

When I came back to Hartpury we were still using high speed treadmill video endoscopy to diagnosis upper airway disorders in horses, whereby technology has now taken this process out into the field with the introduction of wireless endoscopes. The development of new surgical procedures has also altered things for us, one of this is interspinous ligament desmotomy (ISLD) surgery to treat kissing spines as an alternative to the resection method. This surgery largely allows the horse to be back working slightly sooner, but more importantly we have seen a lower incidence of surgical site infection, coupled with horses being much more comfortable in the days following the ISLD than by the old resection method.

So much has happened for all of us here at the Therapy Centre over the past couple of years since I’ve been writing this blog and so I thought there was only therefore one way to really end it fittingly: an montage of the highlights of course, of which there have been very many! So for now farewell, I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and thank you for reading!

Fizz

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

We’ve got some great dissertation projects running at the moment here at Hartpury and, although it’s more my boss Kathryn’s department than mine, sharing an office with her does mean that I get to hear of what our students are up to.

Among this year’s studies is an investigation into the gait patterns of swimming horses and breathing rate in relation to this.

I’ve always had a bit of a fascination with how horses swim and hence was very excited to see some footage earlier this week as part of this project, which is being undertaken by one our part-time staff members and final year Hartpury student, Lizzy Drennan.

>>> Fizz Marshall’s therapy centre blog: Pre-season essentials and the ‘dead bug’

Ledbury-based racehorse trainer Ed de Giles granted access to his beautiful facilities to allow for Lizzy’s study, using a GoPro Hero 4 camera to get the video she needed. It took a bit of experimentation to get it right, involving positioning the camera on the end of a rather long pole, but the results are rather awesome as you can see from the video below.

It’s amazing to see the different ways horses approach swimming and we were of the impression before this study that they effectively trotted underwater, ie. moving in diagonal pairs, to propel themselves along.

It would seem however that their strokes can vary a lot more than this. We’ll know more when Lizzy finishes analysing her results, including what gait pattern makes the best and worst swimmers. What we do know is that horses position their hind legs wide of their normal position to generate the power required to swim, and such this is not dissimilar to how they move when galloping.

Horses that swim well tend to keep their backs closer to the surface level of the water, with those who don’t swim as effectively drop their hind quarters lower in the water, which in turn drags the back down.

In a couple of cases we’ve had horses sent in for water treadmill exercise as an alternative to swimming because they “swam like a stone” to quote the vet. The water treadmill doesn’t elicit the same response in heart rate as swimming however where you can push horses to near maximal levels and effectively maintain a decent level of fitness.

>>> Fizz Marshall’s therapy centre blog: in the Olympia spotlight

Where swimming can fall down is that it’s not necessarily suitable for horses with back pain as it the horse will normally put its head high and drop its spine into extension (downwards). As such, swimming can reinforce the posture of the back when it’s in pain, particularly in a horse that doesn’t swim well.

It’s easy to see why swimming is such a prevalent form of exercise in racing, where the need to keep the horse fit overrides the posture that is deemed more important in other sports. Leg injuries and the pressures of training on delicate thoroughbred feet can also be managed by swimming and thus is it a hugely valuable option for many trainers.

Managing behaviour

I got asked the other day if we have anyone working as part of our team who deals specifically with behavioural issues. My immediate response was that to be honest, we don’t really need it. Don’t get me wrong, most of the horses who come to us will have shown some expression of their injury or condition in their work aside from lameness, be that a refusal to go forward, bucking or refusing fences among many other things. In other cases, they may have been difficult to lead or handle at home during their early rehab when faced with no turnout and restricted exercise.

I absolutely believe that behavioural specialists are key professionals in the industry, and people like my fellow Horse & Hound blogger Jason Webb do a great job with all manner of horses, but for us any behaviour tags are normally related to either pain or an inability to do what is being asked. This is what makes the difference I think, because for the most part when you remove the pain stimulus by treatment and rehab, the behavioural issues will all but disappear also.

>>> Fizz Marshall’s therapy centre blog: A spine-tingling surprise

We will inevitably have hurdles to overcome but as long as we know what the problems were before, we can address these specifically and ground-schooling will take care of most issues. Working them from the ground is also a good way of getting a horse’s confidence up before getting back on board.

Horses that come in with a soft tissue injury, such as a tendon or ligament problem can actually be the trickiest horses to get back into ridden work as, although they may have trotted on the treadmill prior to being ridden, most of them are not allowed to be lunged.

I like to lunge a horses in its saddle before getting on board for the first time because if they are going to buck, they’ll normally get it out of their system at this point. If this is not an option we may well use some oral sedation issued by the vet, such as Sedalin or Domosedan to ensure the partnership remains intact.

Despite all of the above, I do have to sit tight every now and again, and for this reason I never ever ride without a neckstrap. I will admit to having mild palpitations if it’s forgotten!

I’m a bit superstitious and have one particular neckstrap that I trust; I’ve pulled very hard on it in various occasions in the past and it has never let me down! I think this obsession comes from the fact that my instinct is always to keep my hands forward and get out of the saddle if necessary, which in turn means the horse can be carrying on underneath me but I can absorb the movement better. I know other people who prefer a handle on the saddle which I can absolutely see the merits of, but it’s just not natural for me. And this is the key thing, if it all starts to go wrong, you don’t generally have time to think, you just react automatically.

I always want to ride forward when under duress, but in the quietest way possible as I think there are better ways to win an argument than laying into a horse, particularly if they are sharp — you are very likely to come off worse in this situation in my view.

Equally, manual reassurance is not always the best thing either as I was reminded earlier this week on a four-year-old that I have in at the moment having gone to pat him during an expression of his excitement to go out hacking. Patting lead to a full on explosion and frankly I should have known better — he is a racehorse and I think he thought I was changing my hands. Suffice to say I shall be keeping both hands firmly on the reins with him in future!

Fizz

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

Often the horses that come to us are sent for long-term rehabilitation for soft tissue injuries or surgery, but we also get equine athletes who come in for a bit of a tune-up off the back of, or prior to their competition season.

We had a little mare sent a couple of weeks ago for just this reason, and we had a fortnight to work some magic on her.

She was a lovely horse (pictured above) with a great attitude to her work, which really helps when you’re working on such a tight timescale. Our brief was to change her posture in terms of the way she held herself during exercise, which had been compromised by a lack of propulsion from the hind legs.

The owner’s main complaint was that she didn’t really have a canter; ie. despite schooling, the quality of it just wasn’t improving.

Following veterinary assessment prior to her arrival, the mare was diagnosed with right hind limb lameness emanating from the TMT joint in her hock, combined with muscular pain just under the saddle. These issues were addressed by medicating both the hock and the epaxial muscles behind the withers with corticoststeroids, prior to coming on to us.

The mare moved really well, but found it very hard to control her power and carry herself, preferring instead to duck below and behind the contact. One of the results of her difficulty in driving with the hind legs was acute muscular pain and tightness on the underside base of her neck, which she had been using to balance herself while dropping on to the forehand.

Her work programme included a combination of incline treadmill exercise and long reining, and then ridden exercise too as we progressed into the second week of her stay. The owner was quite happy to ride himself which was great as it gave us a good marker of her progression. The key thing in this case was that although we expected her to strengthen up a bit in her two week bootcamp with us, more important was the change in how she handled her power and held herself. Phase two was to come post-discharge where we expected her to become stronger and more consistent in her performance with time and work.

It sounds pretty obvious; the key to her success was a combination of her veterinary treatment and the opportunity for her to operate without the weight of a rider via her treadmill exercise and ground work. Although not everyone has the use of a treadmill to facilitate this kind of training, ground schooling on its own can be a very useful tool to make a rapid improvement in a horse. This is particularly true in cases of back pain where you want to give veterinary treatment time to work without confounding the problem by putting weight on them.

For us, a short-stay rehabilitation can be a really useful tool for cases where the owner/rider wants to put in the work hours themselves but needs a bit of a kick-start to help lay the foundations. From a cost perspective we also often do this kind of work when the horse is not insured. If that is the case it is really important to get the timing right; the horse needs to have had any treatment needed beforehand and be ready to hit the ground running, so that as far as possible we can use every day of the stay to positive effect.

For the horse in question, it was fantastic to see such a change in really quite a short time period, and I think huge credit needs to go to her owner for not letting her issues go too far before they were addressed. Generally speaking, the longer a lameness or pain issue goes unrecognised or untreated, the more difficult a time you will have getting back to where you want to be in the long run.

Operation athlete and a load of dead bugs

Last weekend we welcomed a group of British Dressage members to our Rider Performance Centre for an event organised in association with the BD south west region, spearheaded by the fantastic Mandy Heath.

We’ve worked a lot with Mandy over the years, running different tours and clinics for those under her jurisdiction and so it was quite fitting that our first big event in the new centre should be for her.

The day focused on optimising body control, improving performance and preventing injuries in riders. It was designed to help those taking part understand the strengths and weaknesses of their bodies and the best way to address them, in addition to realising the impact of these issues when riding.

There is relatively little understanding of the rider as an athlete in comparison to other sports such as rugby, football and swimming. As a member of the academic team at Hartpury, Jenni Douglas has produced some of the first bits of research in to the physiological demands placed on riders; during which she looked into the heart rate, respiratory and muscular responses of the body while riding. Research into the rider as an athlete is important because only by fully understanding the forces and demands placed on an individual while riding, can we know how to train properly off the horse for the needs of different disciplines.

The first half of our British Dressage day was handed over to putting all attendees through a standardised screening process. This is when a full spectrum of physical measurements and information on each individual is taken, and for the purposes of the day, highlighting what needed to be worked on. We then moved on to both a postural training workshop in the afternoon and a training session running through basic movement patterns for exercises done either in the gym or at home.

I wanted the feeling of the day to be very comfortable and informal but yet wholly informative and interesting. The group of riders who came were fantastic and really epitomised what I’d hoped for and my enduring memory will be eight riders lying next to each other doing the “dead bug” at the end of the day! For those of you who don’t know what a dead bug is, look it up and you’ll understand why it was quite a cheering sight!

Fizz

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

I was very lucky to have been at the British Dressage National Convention for the Sunday session on 22 November and, like the whole crowd, was delighted to see the little surprise that team Hester and Dujardin sprung in the afternoon.

Completely unexpectedly, they brought Valegro (Blueberry) to complement Nip Tuck (Barney) in the last demonstration of the day (pictured).

There can only have been a handful of people present in the whole place that knew the plan, and in order to keep the surprise for as long as possible we smuggled Blueberry and Barney into stables on the end of our barn to get them ready as part of the covert operation.

As a result it wasn’t just those attending the convention who got the shock of their lives that afternoon, our work experience students were pretty astonished to see the big boys arriving unannounced in front of their eyes too!

Having warmed up — again out of sight — in the top indoor school, Carl and Charlotte continued to leave the crowds in the Hartpury Arena still completely unaware of what was going on.

The champs then made their way to the holding arena, which housed the shopping area over the two days and was scattered with some rather surprised and happy punters as the boys and their entourage rolled in!

As per the programme, Carl started his demo on Barney, and after a couple of minutes of introduction made the announcement that Blueberry had come to play too. The collective gasp of 1500 people is quite something to hear; it actually made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck! I’ve spoken to a few people since then who were also there, and it would seem I wasn’t the only one.

Charlotte was grinning from ear to ear upon hearing the crowd’s reaction and Alan (Carl and Charlotte’s groom) had tears in his eyes — suffice to say, it was all a bit emotional! What a privilege to be there for such a moment. The level of affection that people have for this wonderful horse was there for all to see; it was a tangible reflection of awe and appreciation.

Barney went on to excel himself following Blueberry’s exit after a highly entertaining demo with the two of them together. Carl, in partnership with Judy Harvey on the ground, gave a really interesting insight into how to score the big marks in a grand prix freestyle with style and flair all of his own.

My favourite sentiment of the whole thing was a quip along the lines of: “I’m not going to do the whole test as I don’t want the Germans to see!” I personally can’t wait to see it in full at Olympia next week.

A new addition to our stable

Back in June of this year I wrote about a trip that my boss Kathryn and I made to Tarporley in Cheshire to visit Racewood, the company that made our current mechanical horse, Hercules.

We went up to road-test out their latest offering, the Three-day Event Simulator, a “horse” on which you can ride a grand prix dressage test, jump around course of showjumps and go cross-country on also. As soon as we left the premises we hoped to find a way to buy one of these amazing machines from Racewood, and I’m thrilled to say that we have been successful in securing the funding for a horse, with the help of the Margaret Giffen Charitable Trust.

We are hugely grateful for the continued backing of the trust, who work to help create opportunities for people from all sectors of society to take part in equestrian activities. The trust especially focused on supporting those living with disability, the young, the elderly and people from disadvantaged backgrounds or a mixture of all of these things. We’re so excited to be able to purchase the simulator, which will be the first one of its kind in the UK, with all others having been shipped abroad so far.

Racewood only make one of these horses at a time currently, and so we are expecting ours to be ready in the early part of 2016.

One of the huge benefits of the horse is that it works with three screens that give you both frontal and peripheral vision whilst riding. This allows us not only to observe saddle and rein pressures, but also gives a more connected and integrated experience for the rider. In particular we hope that the children from our local Maisemore RDA group — whom we currently support by donating time on our other simulator Hercules each week — will benefit from this technology by providing a far more interactive experience on a horse than we have ever been able to before.

The new horse will form the centrepiece in the Margaret Giffen Centre for Rider Performance, and will be available for hire for riders and/or instructors to train on, as well as being utilised to enhance our current rider performance clinic provision.

These services are available to all, whether you’re associated with Hartpury or not and we can’t wait to get our new charge in situ to get going. And what will we call this new steed? Well, Margaret of course.

Fizz

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

We have been asked to help with a good few photoshoots over the years but last week we had a really fantastic opportunity to work with photographer Jon Stroud, who is among the best in the business.

I’ve met Jon once before when he came to take pictures of Valegro working on our Aquafit water treadmill earlier this year. This came about when I was asked to write a piece for the book ‘Valegro: Champion Horse’ for which Jon was commissioned to take many of the photographs that embellish and illustrate it. He captured us beautifully and I was astounded with what he managed to achieve while just pretty much following Blueberry, Alan (Davies, Valegro’s groom) and I around for about an hour, snapping away quite naturally (clearly there was a lot more technical stuff going on, but he hid it well!).

Our shoot last week was a more staged affair, with full studio lighting put up around the high speed treadmill. All of this takes a bit of setting up, but was needed to achieve the kind of dramatic, artistic images we were after. I was fascinated by the process as I really have no idea about this kind of thing other than what we have done before, and so it’s was great to see just how you go about producing such a picture.

We have a pool of student horses that we train up each year for purposes just such as this and from these we recruited the gorgeous Annabelle for the day. This lovely mare is owned by Hartpury student Sophie Hulme who very kindly agreed to let us borrow her for the shoot.

We’d previously trained Annabelle to walk, trot and canter happily on the treadmill and she loves it, but there was a lot more for her to see that day and you’re just never 100% sure how a horse will react to such intimidating surroundings. Sophie assured us that she was pretty cultured and so wouldn’t mind the flashes but we did a bit of a road test with her before we actually got her on the treadmill.

The tricky thing about the lighting was that when the flash came on, there was a moment of dark straight afterwards, which understandably would worry a lot of horses. Not Annabelle; as you can see from the video, she just kept cantering! Safety is the most important factor in anything like this and so she was hooked up to our overhead harness while working on there, which operates a bit like a seatbelt to stop the treadmill belt dead if the horse trips or stumbles while cantering.

I can’t wait to see the pictures. Just what Jon showed us on the screen of his camera looked awesome. I think a good equine photographer is a very special and incredibly difficult thing to be. As we all know, our horses possess a huge number of different expressions and there will be some of those that we favour more than others! To capture the side of a horse’s character that we recognise and identify with most takes great skill and understanding, and Jon has this in abundance.

Let’s hear it for the owners

We are very lucky to have some super horses pass through our hands at the Therapy Centre at Hartpury, and equally to meet some wonderful people at the same time.

Our owners come from all strains of life, with a variety of expectations of what they hope us to achieve with their own horse. To rehabilitate a horse successfully you need a willing charge, but you also need a receptive owner. It’s a very humbling experience to witness an individual who is willing to give everything they can to their horse and does their very best to get it all right for them.

Sometimes it all goes swimmingly, and the horse will cruise through its rehab, stay on course and we’ll have a great result for a very happy owner. Other horses can have a rockier road to recovery and it’s these people that I feel for enormously.

The vets are pretty good at predicting what will happen during a case, and we will at times know from the outset that there is a subtle lameness that will either improve or worsen with exercise. Although a vet will generally always give their opinion of ‘worst case scenario’ it doesn’t always make it easier for the owner to take when reality hits and the horse stops making progress. The phrase I hear most often is: “We want to give him every chance” and I am always in great admiration of anyone who strives to give the best care possible to their animals, whether they are with us or outside of our care. Often, the horse will come out the other side again following problems along the way, but this can cause huge emotional turmoil in the process.

From a personal perspective I am very lucky to have support of Trish and Peter Andrews who gave me Charlie, my lovely ex-racehorse. I’ve met a lot of people from far reaches of the horse-world over the years but Trish and Peter are among the most kind, loyal and straightforward that I have ever come across. The generosity they have shown in allowing me to have such a wonderful horse, and the support and advice they have proffered since I’ve had him, reaches levels that I could just never thank them enough for. Trish is a great sounding board and I regularly phone her to ask for her take on something with Charlie. She has an amazing ability to bring clarity to a situation, and regularly comes up with a nugget of advice to help me manage him better. If the world was full of more people like them, it would most certainly all the better for it.

Looking at the horse world objectively, you can’t deny that horse owners are a passionate and at times batty bunch — you have to be a little bit I think to go through the highs and lows of owning and riding horses! Equally you will find within it some of the most caring, dedicated and grounded people you could hope to meet; what better combination of character traits to be on show so readily within a population.

Fizz

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Selecting the right people to help you get the most from your horse can be a complicated business and something of a minefield at times. When it comes to vets, most people will recruit according to geographical location, with others having their horses treated out-with the catchment of where they live on the basis of a referral, personal recommendation or previous experience with that practice or particular vet.

Choosing a therapist can be a slightly more tricky area and is a particularly prickly subject in some professional circles. The UK equine industry is brimming with different therapists offering an array of approaches to treatment, all of which make a common claim; they will all do their very best to fix your horse. But where on earth do you start?

Well, at the very base of things is the law. The Veterinary Surgery (Exemptions) Order 1962 allows for the treatment of animals with ‘physiotherapy’, provided that the animal has first been seen by a vet who has diagnosed the condition and decided that the intervention of a therapist is appropriate under his/her direction. This act was preceded by the Protection of Animals Act, 1911, which allocated liability to both the practitioner and the owner if the horse is treated without veterinary diagnosis and the animal suffers as a result.

Finally, and stick with me here, but physiotherapy doesn’t just mean that work undertaken by a physiotherapist, in the eyes of the law it also encompasses osteopathy and chiropractic techniques, but not acupuncture and homeopathy which can only be undertaken by a suitably qualified veterinary surgeon. Phew. Well, not quite; the 1966 Veterinary Surgeons Act said that however qualified you are to treat humans, you can’t treat animals without further qualification. So doctors can’t treat horses in the same way vets can’t treat people, and so and so forth for therapeutic professionals.

The law may tell you where you stand in terms of the possibility of prosecution, but it doesn’t help you pick who to join your horse’s team in terms of keeping them comfortable and able to do their job properly.

What it does do however is say that a vet must see your horse for the complaint that makes you want a therapist to see your horse in the first place, and so they must be your starting point. Your vet is there not only to diagnose and administer treatment to your horse, but also to advise you and decide who is the best person for the job in hand.

Now this all sounds very straightforward, but we all know that as horse owners we talk to our friends, colleagues, trainers and yard owners about who they use and then factor this into the discussion with the vet. But the vet is key nonetheless; one of the most common reason for seeking complementary therapy for a horse is because they have back pain in some form.

It is more common for back pain to be a secondary issue than a primary cause of dysfunction in a horse, which means that you need the vet to determine and treat the underlying source of the pain, which is very often lameness. By treating the secondary pain without diagnosing the root cause you’re essentially just sticking a plaster on it at best.

The reason that choosing a therapist can be such a difficult proposition is because there are just so many of them and the fact is that some of them are just better than others within and out-with their own schools of training.

The key is to work with your vet to determine what and who you and your horse need. A therapeutic diagnosis is different from a veterinary diagnosis and is reached by the deduction of what is required to restore normal function in a horse, and will and should incorporate the vet’s findings. So that means that if a practitioner tells you that they will improve how your horse is moving, they must at least be willing to see it trot-up, lunge, and move in any other way deemed appropriate. This again is where a veterinary referral is essential; we have horses that come to us that are seen by one of our therapists but have had surgical intervention only weeks before and thus aren’t allowed out of walk at that point in their recovery. Without a referral a therapist wouldn’t know this and so could cause serious harm; this may sound unlikely but scarily it can happen. This is where the owner has a responsibility to do their research so they understand how a chosen therapist has been trained and exactly what they are allowed to do.

Whatever a therapist’s title or qualifications, I want them to understand a horse’s history, what is demanded by its job and what will be asked of it in the future. For my money, this is what makes someone really stand out in terms of their ability to help. They must have an excellent eye for asymmetry and lameness, and be realistic and professional enough to refer back to the vet when they encounter something they can’t deal with.

Only when you can contextualise and rationalise your treatment and role within the overall management of a horse can you make a positive contribution to its care. There are plenty of great therapists out there who really can help, don’t accept anything less!

Fizz

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After months of planning, followed by a rapid 12-week build schedule, our newest venture is finally finished!

The Margaret Giffen Centre for Rider Performance is now complete and I’m so excited about it!

The centre is made up of a rider assessment area (including our mechanical horse), a gym and a dual-purpose sports therapy suite and classroom space. The ethos behind the development is to provide world-class facilities for rider training, assessment, rehabilitation and research, but unlike other facilities of its kind, it is accessible to all. All in all a pretty amazing result considering the space we renovated was our knockdown box and equine operating theatre!

My intention is to throw open our doors to everyone who can reap benefit from the centre, be they para-riders or non-disabled, grassroots or elite.

I think we have an amazing opportunity to help riders of all abilities and backgrounds to find new ways to improve their performance and achieve their goals and I’m currently busy scheduling in the first round of classes and clinics for this autumn and winter.

I think it’s fair to say that riders still take a whole lot of flak from those within other sports who claim that we are not athletes. The naysayers argue that the horse is the real athlete, and the rider is merely a pilot. That statement plagues the credibility of riders as sportsmen and women and really gets my goat.

What doesn’t help our case is that all too often we don’t think of ourselves as athletes, and we certainly don’t treat ourselves as our counterparts competing in other sports do. Society dictates that the word athlete is a term reserved only for those who run fast, jump high and throw big. To be an athlete you must have a six pack, a sponsorship deal and a national flag on your chest.

I did a talk for a gathering of British Dressage members from the south west region last Saturday, and in true style Googled the term athlete in curiosity for its true description:

“An athlete is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed and/or endurance. Athletes may be professionals or amateurs”.

Essentially this means that if you engage in competition within your chosen sport, like it or not, you’re an athlete. Yet, when I did a poll of Saturday’s 92-strong audience, only three put up their hands to claim that they thought of themselves in this vein. I want to change that.

Riders must realise their worth if we are to continue to move forward as a sport and be taken seriously by our sporting peers. Coordination, strength, balance, mental toughness, dedication, mettle and patience (in abundance) – riders have the lot. We want to create a culture whereby we recongnise these traits and treat ourselves as well as we treat our horses.

Within the Therapy Centre we adopt a multi-disciplinary approach to the treatment, rehabilitation and training of horses, which means we utilise a number of people to bring specific expertise to one case. This works in exactly the same way as many different sports, whereby there will be a whole crew of professionals looking after a team or individual. And it is this multi-disciplinary approach that will offered by the Margaret Giffen Centre. This is the most exciting part for me, bringing difference experts together to provide all of the services we need, from rider testing and postural assessments, to strength and conditioning training and performance lifestyle advice.

The era of Lottery funding has afforded both elite and potentially elite equestrian athletes access to these services to a certain extent, but this has not yet filtered out into the wider ranks of our sport. The nice thing about this facility is that has been specifically designed to be able to cater for elite level riders, but that we can offer this out to those who wouldn’t normally get the chance access such equipment and expertise.

We will be running all sorts of sessions for Hartpury students and staff, in addition to the general equestrian public and external groups such as the RDA in the coming weeks and months. Watch this space for reports!

A grand day out

I was very happy to be invited to attend Three Counties Equine Hospital’s open day, along with my boss Kathryn, our osteopath Liz Launder and Catherine Phillips, who is head of veterinary nursing at Hartpury. I also took my horse Charlie along to take part in one of the demos, giving him his first taste of an up-close-and-personal audience, which thankfully he thought was most agreeable!

Three Counties’ practice manager Sarah Smith and her team did an amazing job of organising a great day, which featured an array of star turns, all of which was in aid of the RDA and Midlands Air Ambulance, two causes which are very close to our heart here at Hartpury.

It was a real privilege to be involved and I think these kind of events are a great opportunity for visitors to discover the inner workings of a place that you would only normally go in times of adversity. Thank you to all those involved, we all had a super day.

Fizz

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It’s been a while since I last wrote, having had a bit of a mid-season break of sorts, and it’s really nice to be back again!

I got back to work last Wednesday having finished my challenge to walk the 268 mile Pennine Way in 14 days for the charity Endometriosis UK.

As with anyone who’s forged a career in horses, I’ve had my fair share of injuries and I know what hard work is all about. I have, however, never experienced anything quite like what my body went through over those two weeks! It was without question the hardest thing, both mentally and physically, I have ever done. It wasn’t even a matter of fitness or being under-prepared; I was conditioned enough to get up the hills and cover varying distances of between 13 and 26 miles per day, but quickly learned that nothing prepares you for what your body goes through unless you’ve actually done something like this before.

Suffice to say I hadn’t ever done anything like it and so had no idea what I was getting myself into!

My standard optimistic outlook led me to trust that I could carry a 21kg pack along the toughest long distance trail in the UK. Let me tell you, I couldn’t. I established this in the first mile, after which I disposed of 3kg of weight straight away at the campsite I stayed at that night (what on earth I thought I would need flip flops anyway for goodness knows!).

And so it was that for the initial 10 day stretch of the challenge that I carried 18kg (almost 1/3 of my bodyweight) up to nine hours a day over moorland, along drove roads, across hideous bog, up crag faces then down the other side again, not to mention along a fair few bridleways!

The result of this, plus some really wet conditions, was a crucifying effect on my feet and

previously untapped parts of my legs — all of which really impeded my ability to walk at all. These unwelcome side-effects often kicked in around the 15 mile point; not too helpful on the 20 mile days!

The flip-side of doing something like this is that you get to see some amazing places that you often would never, ever know were there otherwise. The trail took in some truly astounding views and amazing landmarks along the way, and demanded climbs that had you proposed to me on paper, I would have never thought I’d make under that weight.

It taught me that even when you think you have nothing left, regardless of how much pain you’re in (provided you’re not massively injured of course), if you can just keep going, you can actually get through it. This revelation does however mean that I no longer have any excuse for wanting to stop because I’m knackered during lessons on my horse unfortunately!

The whole thing was embraced by so many people; my family, friends (some of whom came and joined in over the last few days), colleagues and even people I’d never met before but got talking to along the way and I’m so grateful to every one of them for their support.

Ultimately, it was an amazing experience, we raised a pretty decent chunk of money, and it was something I will never forget. At the celebrations afterwards, my mum said: “So what’s next then?” I think something with wheels on it would be a good start!

On your marks

Once again we’re looking forward to welcoming a new intake of students for the coming academic year, the first batch of whom arrive this week. We will also meet a whole new crop of horses over the coming weeks who come with their owners in tow to use our facilities at here at the therapy centre.

We aim to get as many student and staff horses through our doors as possible each year, most of whom will hopefully only visit for exercise purposes rather than for rehabilitation. This need stems from our involvement in a huge number of research projects, practical demonstrations and teaching commitments over the coming months, all of which we need “demo horses” for to effectively show what would happen in a real case situation, but without compromising the confidentiality or work programmes of any of our patients.

The habituation of all of our demo horses to treadmill and/or water treadmill exercise is a process which will mostly happen up until Christmas, with a steady trickle of additional horses being trained throughout the spring and summer terms also. We have tried and tested procedures in place for this, but there is of course an element of deploying different ways of achieving the same thing depending on the horse’s reaction to a situation.

Most people who come to have a tour around our centre take one look at the treadmill and say: “Oh, my horse would NEVER go on that!” The truth is that, 99% of horses will take to the high-speed treadmill really well, with around the same proportionate percentage going well on the water treadmill also. For both of these machines, habituation – which can be defined as the stabilisation of a horse’s gait on the treadmill, whereby it reverts to its normal overland rhythm and stride pattern — takes three to four sessions on average.

We always use two handlers plus a driver (who actually operates the treadmill) when we start a new horse, as this helps to keep them straight and in the right place on the belt until they get their balance sorted.

Initially getting them on there is very much the same as teaching a horse to load into a trailer, and as long as their happy to follow a handler up the belt then you’re pretty much there. With the normal treadmill, we teach them to step forwards and backwards prior to starting the belt, thus giving them an indication that something is about to happen. When they cotton on to this, which normal only takes a minute or so, we then push start as they’re about to step forward — that way they begin walking without even realising it. You do get some horses who, despite this tactic, will watch their own feet disappear underneath them but the moving belt soon dictates they soon have to take a step!

The water treadmill is slightly different in that every horse that we start in there will have a tiny bit of IV sedation from the vet, just to offset against the potential intimidation factor of the chamber. They will also have already been habituated to normal treadmill exercise so they understand that they need to move with the belt. Once started, we take our time in terms of getting the water up to the desired height so as not to scare the horse, often doing this over a few sessions, although you do get the odd one who is so keen that we need the water to slow them down! We have a handler go into the chamber with the horse each time until they are confident enough to walk in themselves, giving them a bit more reassurance that it’s all ok.

Treadmills can look pretty scary, but official figures on safety are actually very impressive, and incidents are very rare in our experience. We keep the horses safe by using stringent, tested methods for treadmill exercise, and this would be my advice to anyone thinking of this type exercise for their horse: wherever you take your horse, you need people who know what they’re about. The whole affair should be slick and unflustered, we’re not looking for fireworks.

We want everything to be as calm and relaxed as possible, while being as safe as we can make it. Get that right and you have a horse that will think a treadmill is a pretty great place to be.

Fizz

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Our lives were awash with elegance and poise throughout Hartpury’s Festival of Dressage held here from 8 -12 July.

The Festival welcomed the highest quality field across the board we’ve probably ever seen, fuelled by bumper entries overall and the week was studded an array of glittering performances.

I managed to catch some highlights, which for me included watching some really lovely and exciting young horses in the age classes. I was also one of the many who flocked to the mecca of the International arena (see above picture) on Friday and Sunday afternoon to watch Valegro’s first appearance at the Festival since 2012.

The banking around the edge forms a natural amphitheatre and but you could have heard a pin drop during the Grand Prix Special on the Sunday afternoon — such was the hush that rippled through the crowd when Charlotte Dujardin went to enter the arena.

I read a comment from Charlotte about the fact that she couldn’t believe that people were taking pictures of them wherever they went; so many people I spoke to were absolutely elated to have been able to watch them perform in the flesh. It was the first time I’ve ever seen him compete in real life, which is a bit odd really considering we see so much of him. I joked with Alan Davies (Valegro’s groom) beforehand that it’s like knowing Clark Kent when everyone else knows Superman — we reckoned his competition ear hat is the equivalent of Blueberry’s superman costume!

A matter of backwards and forwards

Of all the standout performances that I saw, there was an aspect that was common to all: the quality of their transitions. Yes, you need movement, suppleness and power, but to combine all of these things you need to be able to travel through the gears and proceed from movement to movement imperceptibly.

This sounds really obvious, but it is an incredibly difficult thing to achieve.

Using transitions in training helps the development of strength, balance, engagement, physical responsiveness and concentration in a horse; which are all of the things that then contribute to the improvement of the transitions themselves. And of course this doesn’t just refer to transitions between the gaits, it’s the tiny re-balancing aids you give, the half-halts, the collections, the extensions and everything in between in every single pace.

This is not a new idea, the powerhouses of equestrian sport have been advocating the use of frequent transitions within training for years, and in modern dressage possibly none more than Carl Hester who states that he will do literally hundreds of transitions within every training session, many of which we would barely be able to see.

Horses with lameness and/or soft tissue injuries such as proximal suspensory desmitis (PSD) in the hindlimbs often struggle with transitions as a symptom of their condition.

PSD is essentially a repetitive strain injury, and thus is particularly common in dressage horses where frequent collected work can inevitably start to leave its mark. This can result in a reduction in a horse’s ability to generate power from behind, be that when asking for a medium trot or collected canter for instance.

Other examples include untreated hock pain, which can manifest itself as a ‘hop’ from walk into trot or a bunny hop into canter, where the horse attempts to use its front end to pull itself forward and up through the gaits.

Downward transitions can be affected by lameness also, with many horses almost bracing with their front legs and feet rather than sitting with the hind quarters and taking the strain with the hind legs. Crookedness can also creep into transitions downward in a compromised horse.

Once a horse has been diagnosed and is under treatment for the cause of its lameness, transitions are one of the things we spend most time working on within a rehabilitation programme, allowing us to not only build strength but also address issues with the transitions themselves.

Our osteopath Liz is a big fan of using ‘small steps’ to teach the horse how to be straight and hold their rhythm in downward transitions again, allowing a progressive change of gait. This technique will also encourage a more prevalent stance phase in each stride, essentially encouraging each hind foot to be in contact with the ground for longer and thus start to generate more power.

As the horse progresses in its work, transitions also help to increase the intensity of a session without having to go through more limb cycles, so you get maximum benefit from your training session.

Meeting an inspiration

Equal to the FEI CDI and Premier League classes at the Festival of Dressage was the FEI CPEDI3* para-dressage competition that ran from Wednesday to Friday that week.

I noticed that fellow H&H blogger Suzannah Hext’s lorry was parked outside of our barn and saw her one day just outside of it. I’ve been reading Suzannah’s blogs from the outset, so went up and introduced myself as a bit of fan!

What a charming, lovely person she is. I joked with her about how excited I was to have met someone famous, but I guess what I really meant was to meet someone who is such an inspiration to so many. Her story is truly remarkable and it was great to see her competing here as her first International competition.

For any of you who haven’t yet read her blogs – they really are worth a look! If you want an account of human endeavour and achievement, this is the girl for you.

Fizz

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The European Championships for juniors and young riders produced controversy this year. Clearly the weather was extreme, over 40°C at times, and that’s nobody’s fault, but there must be strategies around keeping horses and riders comfortable.

Riders, as a rule, can take care of themselves (or not, in the case of fainting children) but what about the horse, who can’t?

Surely there was enough advance warning? The forecast indicated a heatwave was highly likely, so why were no fans and cooling mists — which we’ve had before — provided? It’s not a question of hot areas not holding shows, but, for the welfare of the horse, there has to be a plan.

I’ve competed at Vidauban several times. Bernadette Brune does a wonderful job and she can’t be held responsible. The FEI has to take control to ensure conditions are managed and adapted to. Having spoken to trainers there, conditions sounded pretty horrendous. Welfare has to be in the right order on the list — at the top.

Team prospects on show

Hartpury’s CDI (pictured) has really put itself on the international stage with top stabling, surfaces and a wonderful ambience. Very few places in the world at which I’ve competed have such good surfaces. The fact that our team prospects (the team will have been picked by the time this is in print) were competing on home soil attracted a huge audience — and a slot on the evening TV news made for a real festival.

It’s such a shame that more foreign competitors don’t come, but with the increasing costs of travel and ferries, plus the nightmare situation for lorries crossing the Channel — the risk of invasion by illegal immigrants — it’s perhaps not surprising.

The teams already selected for the upcoming Aachen Europeans look very exciting.

German national coach Monica Theodorescu and the selectors have of course included Totilas. He impressed at Hagen, his only competition this year, which I can’t help but think has been a tactical decision to save him for the Europeans. The job of the selectors is to pick a gold-medal team, which is a huge pressure. We must remember Aachen on home ground is a huge deal for Germany, but I can’t help feeling sorry for some of the other competitors who fulfilled the criteria, produced high scores and weren’t selected.

That said, finally Totilas and Valegro go head-to-head at a major championship, which people will be looking forward to (and no doubt bitching about!). Charlotte, Fiona Bigwood and I look good for Team GBR and with Michael Eilberg directing his attentions to Marakov, their last grand prix score (73.6%) makes them hot for the fourth spot.

There was something about Hartpury that brought out the best. Valegro did a good grand prix, though it showed the need for tweaking. His special looked on for a record until a mistake in the one-times, a timely reminder to keep us on our toes.

And Nip Tuck? Every time I think he’s reached the ceiling, he pulls out more stops and reminds me never to say never. Fiona’s mare Atterupgaards Orthilia is truly world-class. At only 10 she needs to be ridden carefully with Rio in mind.

With grands prix of 85%, 78% and 76%, this could be a really exciting championship for us.

Other riders showing promise were Gareth Hughes with Classic Briolinca and Henriette Anderson with Warlocks Charm. Over in Hagen, Spencer Wilton scored 73% in the special with Supernova, so there is at last some depth to our squad.

Finally, Valegro and Nip Tuck were surprised after getting on the lorry for their latest party to find there was no plane nor ferry — just a 20-minute trip down the road!

Ref: Horse & Hound; 23 July 2015

This week I would like to start at the end. As we operate within a college environment, we tend to think in academic years as opposed to calendar ones. Summer is therefore always the time of year when we have to say goodbye to the outgoing crop of students and also to our interns too, who are based with us for a year.

One of these is Kate Lefrancois who has been working with us as graduate assistant over the past year, a role designed to allow Hartpury Masters students work alongside their studies.

Kate has not only conquered the quite incredible feat of completing a two-year MSc course in a single year, but also worked to become a huge asset to our team since she moved over from Canada to join us. She will greatly missed by everyone.

We had a nice official end to Kate’s year here in the form of Hartpury’s Summer Fair (6 June), during which we had the most amazing haul of volunteers involved to make the day go as planned (pictured top).

Every year we seem to accumulate greater numbers of work experience students within our ranks, and in a wider society where young people often get a bad rap, our acolytes are definitely bucking the trend.

Our regular student volunteers were joined on the day by my boss’ two sons, Max and Eddie, who were on hand for all manner of things. They finished their shift by getting the chance to help Grace – one of our canine hydrotherapists – swim my dog. Essentially this meant a bit of instruction, and then them racing Damson up and down the pool! The children and the dog were all elated as each other, resulting in a whole load of laughing, splashing and basically two under 10s having had the best time ever.

Feeding matters

Feeding horses who are on a combination of box rest and controlled exercise is one of the greatest challenges we face on a day-to-day basis.

Our in-patients generally come in one of two forms: they are either slightly on the portly side having done quite well during field or stable rest prior to starting work, or they are atrophic and need to build muscle and gain condition.

We have a weighbridge to help monitor the horses; sometimes they appear to be dropping weight by eye but actually they’ve lost it on their tummies and put it on as muscle on elsewhere.

If you can’t get access to a weighbridge, a really useful way of monitoring at home is to take pictures of the horse every couple of weeks, as well as measurements of the thickest point of the neck and around the barrel. You can of course use a weightape, which are pretty accurate for well-proportioned horses but your long-backed tubular varieties can deceive the tape!

I think the most important thing is just that you give yourself something measurable to go by, whichever of these means you chose.

If we do have a good-doer on our hands we follow really simple principles. We weigh their hay and trickle feed it to them throughout the day, and often use treat balls to keep them amused.

Those who are allowed out in the field can go in our bare grass pens, but for horses who are on box rest this is obviously not an option.

The trouble with overweight horses who are carrying an injury is that it can put more strain than desired on the affected structures. Horses with back pain can also be adversely affected by being too hefty — the abdominal muscles need to be tight and strong to allow a horse’s back to remain supple and fully supported.

I very firmly do not believe in starving horses however; it’s not how they are designed to eat and so I’d rather soak the life out of hay just to give them something to chew on than succumb to risk factors such as gastric ulcers.

A horse will always look its best when it’s living a normal life in work and going in the field, but while injured, you just have to manage them the best you can.

In some ways horses who need to gain weight are easier to feed, provided they like to eat of course! If they don’t, as anyone who has a fussy horse knows, it can be even more stressful. It can also be difficult to resist the temptation of feeding these types of horses too much too quickly.

We do get horses coming into us who look poor despite their owner’s best efforts because they are out of work and not doing well on it. This type of situation takes time and patience, but you cannot build muscle by feed alone. Our job is to make sure we give the horse enough fuel to build as they progress in their work, but not overcook them. Supplements such as Equitop Myoplast can be really useful in these types of cases, which is for all intents and purposes an equine protein-shake.

Baileys supply our feed and we must consume literally tons of Topline Cubes every year, while Lo-Cal Balancer is really useful for those who need a lower calorie intake but all to still meet all of their daily nutrient requirements. In terms of chaff we range from using alfalfa to a light chaff, and dried grass too. I also feed a lot of unmolassed sugarbeet and soya oil up to amounts of around 60ml per day.

I am fascinated by the whole business of feeding horses and long has rumbled the debate of science vs art when it comes to this subject.

I personally think it is a combination of the two. In the past I’ve worked in places where we only fed straights, with the horses receiving a combination of oats, rolled or naked, broad bran and barley boiled with linseed.

In New Zealand I worked on a stud where it was a case of “one coarse mix fits all”, which was formulated specifically to address the nutrient deficiencies of their land.

Feeding is essentially largely down to preference, economics and situation. On our yard all the horses will have their rations decided on by discussion with their owners and possibly the vet in charge of the case, the latter of which is essential in post-operative cases. The art comes in knowing when to alter things in light of the horse’s daily work or in response to a change in its development or demeanour.

Fizz

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“If I defend my individual champion title I’ll be the happiest girl in the world,” said Charlotte Dujardin ahead of this summer’s FEI European dressage championships.

Charlotte and Valegro will be travelling to Aachen (11-23 August) and said she is looking forward to taking on her old rivals.

The reigning European, World and Olympic champion added that she is “extremely excited” about the upcoming competition.

Charlotte is currently favourite to take gold but will be up against home riders Isabell Werth, Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and Kristina Bröring-Sprehe. Organisers also hope to see Matthias Rath and Totilas at the show, as it was announced earlier this week that the pair are to make their comeback at Hagen — a qualifying show for the Europeans.

Dutch riders Edward Gal and Adelinde Cornelissen will also be competing.

“It’s massively exciting and I’m really looking forward to it,” said Charlotte of defending her title. “Aachen has a great atmosphere and a great crowd. You can’t ask for more than that really.

The dressage competitions start on 12 August and are held in the main stadium at Aachen, which seats 40,000.

“Valegro loves the crowds,” Charlotte added. “He’s such a showman and I think he knows that so he tries his hardest and enjoys it every time.”

The duo are also due to compete in Gloucestershire at the Festival of Dressage at Hartpury next month (8-12 July).

This will be their only competition before the Europeans.

Charlotte and Valegro’s last appearance at Hartpury was in 2012, when they claimed the British grand prix freestyle record with 90.65%, just a month before being crowned double Olympic gold medallists.

“We are thrilled that Charlotte and Valegro are planning to compete at the Hartpury Festival of Dressage,” said Hartpury’s Phillip Cheetham.

“The Festival always attracts a star-studded line-up of competitors from all over the world but, to have such a renowned ambassador for the sport at the college is very special.

“To have the chance to watch the very best in the world at our unique venue is an opportunity not to be missed.”

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Record numbers of students are graduating from equine colleges this summer, but will they be able to secure jobs?

Over the next few weeks, equine students across the country will be donning robes and mortarboards for their graduation ceremonies.

They are among the first students to have paid the £9,000 annual tuition fees, and so will be graduating with huge debts.

So was it worth it? Will signing up for an equine-based education course have set them up on an equestrian career path?

Due to the double-dip recession, unemployment figures previously made for grim reading.

According to UK poverty statistics the unemployment rate for 16-24 year-olds rose from 15% in 2008 to 20% in 2010 (features, 17 January 2013), and competition for jobs was tough.

However, are things looking up? That figure is now at 16.7%, with 735,000 16-24 year-olds unemployed in January to March 2015, down slightly on the previous quarter and down 140,000 on the last year.

There are signs that the industry is recovering, which may bode well for current graduates. H&H reported earlier this year that the equestrian industry appeared to be emerging from the recession, with a rise in spending.

Results from the National Equestrian Survey run by the British Equestrian Trade Association (BETA) showed that spending in 2014 was £4.3bn, up from £3.8bn when the previous survey was carried out in 2011. This compares to £4.15bn in 2006.

And according to the latest figures from equine colleges the future looks positive.

A recent survey of Royal Agricultural University (RAU) students who graduated in 2014 showed that 98.2% of respondents were in full employment or further study within six months of leaving the university.

RAU vice-principal, Professor Paul Davies, said: “We are very encouraged by this latest survey. Student employment has been high for very many years at the RAU — but the figures this year are particularly pleasing. Employers clearly find RAU graduates attractive, and long may this jobs record for Cirencester continue.”

Employability is one of “the key factors we are asked about by prospective students”, said Jessica Taylor, the RAU’s head of marketing and student recruitment.

The university’s most popular equine degree is international equine and agricultural business management, which includes a five-month work placement and field trips to equestrian businesses in Kentucky, Germany and France.

This summer the RAU has a record number of equine students graduating, and the hike in fees has not deterred applicants.

“Overall our undergraduate courses, which include equine, have recorded a 9% increase in applications this year,” added Ms Taylor.

This compares to an increase of 3% in the number of applications made to UCAS overall.

Olympic boom continues

“London 2012 really shone a light on our industry and the opportunities available, and this has translated into more applications for both our diploma and degree equine courses,” said Rosie Scott Ward, director of equine at Hartpury.

The RAU has expanded its equine department and told H&H it has received increased applications.

And the post-Olympic rise in the number of students studying equine courses has continued at Moulton College in Northampton.

Student numbers at the college, which runs a range of courses from equine therapy to performance and coaching at its jumping and dressage academies, have increased by 18% since the London

2012 Games.

“Our most popular courses are undoubtedly within our jumping academy, particularly our Level 3 extended diploma. This is closely followed by our range of equine rehabilitation and therapy courses,” said Moulton’s press officer.

Half of Moulton’s Level 3 students go on to a university-level course; the remaining 50% go into employment, over half of whom — 30% of all Moulton’s students — enter the equine industry.

“Moulton College equine students study a variety of courses that allow them to enhance their employability skills. Students have the opportunity to undertake 300 hours of work experience and can develop their skills — on which they are assessed and graded — at our state-of-the-art commercial equine therapy centre. This, coupled with their academic studies, helps to prepare students for the world of work,” said Craig Jackson, assistant director of curriculum at Moulton College.

Moulton currently has 136 equine students, of whom 95 are on further education courses and 41 are in higher education studies.

Applications up for 2015

At Hartpury College the most popular equine courses starting in September 2015 are business and technology council (BTEC) diplomas in horse management (Levels 2 and 3) and degree courses in equine business management, equine science and management, equine science and equestrian sports science.

The college currently has 162 students enrolled on equine programmes at college level, and 327 on equine programmes at degree level. Applications for September 2015 courses are up 10% compared with the same time last year.

This September the college is running a new course in equestrian sports coaching, which is proving popular. Also new is an integrated masters in equine science enabling students to get finance for a four-year masters course.

A new rider performance centre is also opening this September, to give equestrian students more opportunities to apply the theory learnt in a classroom in a practical setting.

Rosie Scott-Ward, of Hartpury added: “There is an increasing recognition within the equine industry and by prospective students that studying for an equine programme alongside gaining practical and work experience is the ideal preparation for a good career.”

More than 70% of Hartpury’s equine business management graduates “are in professional or managerial positions within six months of graduating”, she added.

Eloise Caisley worked for four years as an apprentice saddler at Colne Saddlery after graduating from the BA (Hons) equine business management course at Hartpury in 2010.

“I carried out my work placement at Colne Saddlery and used my experience there as a basis for my third-year dissertation, which focused on updating a business,” she said.

Last June she set up her own bespoke leather goods company after winning a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship.

“Having now started my own business, everything I studied on the business management side has come flooding back,” she said.

Judging by the success of the current crop of equine students, the mortarboards will be flying high this summer as more students celebrate moving from education into employment.

Ref: H&H 18 June, 2015

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I have worked with horses for very many years now and am used to the standard edition of four legs and a tail when it comes to the charges in my care.

However, last week my boss Kathryn and I went off to meet a whole new breed of equine all together. His sleek, black, elegant frame gave way to a wealth of talent: not only could he pop around a course of showjumps and gallop happily across country, but could also perform a grand prix test or take you on a hack around a peaceful tree-lined landscape. As if this wasn’t enough, he even whinnied when you touched the base of his neck (a rather endearing touch there I thought). This really was one multi-talented equid and is the latest offering from the amazingly clever people at Racewood, who lead the field when it comes to producing equine simulators.

We went to test out this particular horse at their bijou workshop in Tarporley, Cheshire and it was really nice to be greeted by voices we have known at the end of telephone for many years, but had never before had the privilege to meet.

To describe Racewood as a cottage industry is an injustice to the pioneering technology they produce from within those four walls, but yet perfectly sums up the dimensions of space they operate in.

I was staggered that such incredible creations could be manufactured here, and it was fascinating to be talked through process of constructing each horse from the ground up to bring it to life. Each simulator is built by one person at a station in the workshop, rather like car production before the Ford Motor Company revolutionised manufacturing by introducing assembly lines for the Model T in 1913. There is nothing centennial about Racewood’s processes however, more just that each build is the completion of a sequence which encapsulates meticulous attention to detail, build quality and pride in their product from start to finish.

We went to see the ‘Three-Day Event Simulator’, which is not only a breed apart from its living, breathing equivalent, but also from other mechanical horses that have gone before it.

Our current, and now slightly middle-aged effort – Hercules (pictured above) as he is known to his mates – is operated by a system of cogs and pulleys, like most others of his kind. The beast that we road-tested leaves the rest in its wake, utilising flight simulator technology to give their most life-like experience yet.

It requires more precision than you would imagine to ride this machine; I found that half-pass took even more concentration than usual! But once you get the hang of the leg aids and weight of contact needed, everything starts coming together. You are given feedback on a screen of saddle and rein pressures, and so from a coaching or instructional point of view the benefits are very clear. I jumped it around a course of showjumps prior to heading our across the country which I have to admit was also more challenging than you might think, but very fun.

The software gives you an on screen analysis of speed, and how often you got the horse into the right place in terms of fence take off. Suffice to say that the common theme of my end of session report was that I was coming in to fences at gallop when I should have actually been in collected canter; hmmm, no change there then!

A wee ramble

I try to keep pretty fit and active generally, and definitely find that it helps my riding apart from anything else. This is going to be taken to a whole new level (for me anyway) at the end of August when I will be walking the length of the 268 mile Pennine Way in aid of the charity Endometriosis UK.

Normally I go to the gym two to three times per week but training has been stepped up in earnest to make sure I’m fit enough to be able to cope with tramping an average of around 18 miles each day.

Last Sunday was the first ‘big walk day’ that I’ve done so far and if anything can make a substantial amount of pain in your legs seem worthwhile, it’s the views from the top of the Malverns on a beautiful day (pictured). It really was quite breath-taking, or maybe that was just the hill climbs…!?

I like a challenge and this will most certainly be one, not least because I will carry everything with me for the duration and camp most of the way. The route starts out in Edale in Derbyshire, finishing up in Kirk Yetholm, which is the village where my grandparents lived and so it has additional sentimental value for that reason.

I really am pretty excited about the whole thing and it’s for a really great cause; Endometriosis is an incurable condition which affects one in 10 women in the UK.

The charity works to support women with the condition and raise awareness to speed up diagnosis rates. You can read more about it here https://www.justgiving.com/Felicity-Marshall1/ and I will keep you posted with updates!

Fizz

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Dressage superstars Charlotte Dujardin and Valegro will be joining an impressive lineup at The Festival of Dressage this summer (8-12 July).

Charlotte will compete alongside her trainer and H&H columnist Carl Hester at the 10th anniversary festival at Hartpury College, Gloucestershire,

It is hoped this year’s competition will be even more popular than the last, where more than 300 riders from 19 nations took part across the five days.

“We are thrilled that Charlotte and Valegro are planning to compete at the Hartpury Festival of Dressage,” said Phillip Cheetham, assistant equine director at Hartpury College.

“We’re also looking forward to Olympic champion, Carl Hester, returning to the festival stage and I know everyone in the Hartpury community will be rooting for him.

“With Carl coaching our own elite dressage riders and having such a high-profile locally, he’s always a hugely popular competitor.”

The festival will be Charlotte and Valegro’s only competition before they head to the European Championships in Aachen (11-23 August).

“To have the chance to watch the very best in the world at our unique venue is an opportunity not to be missed,” added Mr Cheetham.

This year’s festival incorporates CDI3*, CPEDI3*, premier league and the Shearwater young dressage horse championship with a Saturday gala evening performance of both national and international grand prix freestyle.

Entry to the Hartpury Festival of Dressage is free from Wednesday to Friday and £5 on Saturday and Sunday.

Tickets for the gala night are £16.50 in advance and hospitality options are available to include a champagne reception and a four-course meal overlooking the arena.

For more information visit: www.hartpury.ac.uk/dressage

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The last couple of weeks have been great. I’ve had the opportunity to take part in some really fascinating PhD research being carried out by Jenni Douglas, who is subject manager within Hartpury’s higher education equine department.

Essentially, Jenni has been looking at the cardiorespiratory and neuromuscular responses of the human body to horse riding. To do this, she has put volunteer subjects through their paces by way of a treadmill exercise test in our human performance lab and also via assessment on a horse. By testing in this way, Jenni will establish how best to train riders to improve their fitness, endurance and stability on a horse.

I did my treadmill test last week, during which I was hooked up to a heart rate monitor, and had to breathe into a pipe to measure oxygen uptake. At least all my huffing and puffing while running wasn’t in vain!

The equipment allowed Jenni to determine VO2max, which is the maximal amount of O2 (oxygen) a person can use during exercise. My VO2max was 47ml/kg/min, which means that for every kilo of my bodyweight, I can use 47ml of oxygen per minute at my current fitness level. The idea is that you train to increase this figure. When you consider an elite cyclist will be somewhere around the 75ml/kg/min mark, I’m not quite there yet!

This data was combined with heart rate readings, measurement of blood lactate and a subjective self-assessment of how hard I felt I was working at any given time.

I go to the gym a few times a week, but didn’t really know how fit I was – it was amazing to have all this kit to play with and give a better idea of where my fitness is. However, there is no way to look glamourous while you’re doing this kind of thing as this picture proves!

We did part two of the study this week, which was similar in that there was a set exercise test to complete, but this time on a horse.

It was made up of timed periods of sitting trot, rising trot, canter sitting and in half-seat and then popping a small fence a few times. It was very odd riding in a Darth Vader-style mask to begin with (again to measure O2 uptake), but thankfully my borrowed steed didn’t seem too phased by the whole thing.

This week’s test also included the use of EMG sensors, which measure muscle activity, and a heart rate monitor for comparative data that we collected from the running bit. There was a lesson happening while we were doing all this and I think we gave Jane, the instructor, and her students a bit of a shock as I cantered towards them in all my get up! All I needed was a cape and a black helmet and I’d have had the Darth Vader look all sewn up….

I can’t wait for Jenni to bring together all of her results; she has tested over 100 riders and so it will be awesome to see what she comes up with. Research of this kind of thing brings us closer to establishing just what we should be doing off the horse to help us become better riders, and is another step closer to dispelling the age-old belief that riders don’t count as athletes.

Dancing Shoes

I’ve talked about shoeing fairly often in the past, I guess because it’s such an important factor in successful rehabilitation.

Our farriers at Hartpury are not averse to utilising some of the more unusual varieties of equine footwear available to them should the need arise.

Pictured is a “Rock n’ Roll” shoe on a horse shod for us by Kelvin Lymer of Sandpitt Forge. He used a pair of these amazing-looking creations in front, coupled with a pair of “fish-tails” behind. Fish tails have curved, extended length on the back of the shoe to give added heel support.

Arguably, Rock n’ Roll horseshoes are used in Europe more often than here. They were sported by the Spanish dressage horse Fuego de Cardenas at the 2012 London Olympics.

The structure of the shoe allows the horse to move around the centre of rotation. In this instance the shoe has been nailed into a cast applied around the hoof wall. The cast is made of the same stuff that is used for people with a broken leg or arm. The cast is used because of poor hoof horn quality, in this case providing a more rigid receptor for the nails to keep the shoe on. It is finished off with a 30-sure hoof pack (which is a purple, putty-like material), compressed into the central cavity of each shoe, providing a central support to the whole foot.

I personally have never seen anything like it, but what an amazing job the whole composition does. The horse loads his foot evenly on landing, preventing any imbalance in weight distribution throughout the foot. I can only say, Kelvin — you are a genius!

Fizz

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Let’s begin with the oddest thing I’ve come across during the past couple of weeks.

The package pictured above was waiting outside Hartpury Arena one morning last week and was the source of much hilarity, not to mention a quest to track down who it was meant to be delivered to. We decided that either there was some kind of Trojan horse conspiracy going on, or one of the students had decided to save some money on transport and test the capacity of Royal Mail instead!

There was a decent amount of comedy value gleaned prior to finding out that the package was actually destined for the vet nursing department where they use a plastic horse for students to practice bandaging on prior to graduating to the real thing.

Whichever way, it’s not what you expect to see on your way to breakfast very early in the morning!

Back to normality

We’ve had all the hustle and bustle of normal life here otherwise, with visits from Sparsholt and Abingdon & Witney Colleges among the very many things keeping us busy.

We also recently completed the first phase of the redevelopment of our equine surgical suite into our new rider performance centre.

Prior to building work starting, we needed to first dismantle and remove the knockdown and recovery box area where our mechanical horse and rider analysis suite will be situated (pictured below).

It was a really weird feeling to see such a massive feature of our building taken out; there’s a lot of history in these walls! But progress marches on, and I’m really excited about what the future holds for the centre. When the work is complete, it will provide us with something unique to the UK — an amazing facility accessible for all, be that at grassroots or elite level, for able-bodied or para-athletes. Suffice to say I can’t wait for it to be finished!

The last of the big Easter events here was the British Dressage (BD) Winter Nationals and the top moment of the whole show for me had to be Lewis Carrier winning the elementary restricted championship on his own lovely young horse, Diego V. Lewis was a student here last year and so we got to know him a bit, he’s super talented and a really nice guy to boot. He’s now based with the Eilbergs and it’s fantastic to see him doing so well. I was particularly impressed with his highly enthusiastic lap of honour — it was great to see someone tearing up the arena in a blaze of glory!

It’s always nice to see familiar faces among the officials too, such as the ever-cheerful Dan Chapman, who along with his fellow stewards pulled off some incredible shifts to keep the whole thing running smoothly. I did catch Dan sneaking off for an ice cream at one point — perhaps this is the key to happy stewards?

And then there was Valegro. What can I say about Valegro? What a performance from him and Charlotte to retain their World Cup title again in Vegas, especially considering the difficult conditions they faced on arrival with high temperatures and a sand storm to contend with. And that’s not to mention those faced by Alan [Davies] (Valegro’s groom), who endured food poisoning when he got there!

What struck me most about the whole thing, besides their extraordinary tests, was how much it still means to secure such a win. Some people seem to get used to winning, but a picture of Charlotte and Alan bringing “Blueberry” back into the arena for the prize-giving with tears in their eyes really got to me. What a privilege it is to be part of the Valegro generation.

Happy retirement, AP

As a devoted National Hunt racing fan, last Saturday felt like a momentous occasion. I cleared my afternoon of all things bar sitting on the sofa with the dog watching all of the action from AP McCoy’s swansong at Sandown Park.

The affection and atmosphere generated by the crowd was palpable and I have to admit that I cried on three separate occasions throughout the coverage! For as long as I have loved racing, McCoy has been a steadfast presence, personifying the heart, soul and grit required to be successful in this most brutal of sports. I’ve grown up watching him and, for my money, his talents as a horseman have only improved with age and he retired as the best he’d ever been.

He said something that really struck me in one interview I saw last week, stating that he had always aimed to “find something impossible and then figure out a way to do it.” Personally, I can’t think of a better way to live your life, what an inspiration.

Fizz

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It’s the time of year when everything seems to happen at once for us at Hartpury.

We’ve been relatively quiet throughout February and early March in terms of inpatients but it was like someone flicked a switch as soon as the promise of April appeared on the horizon, so much so that I could have filled our barn twice with the number of enquiries I’ve received during the past three weeks.

We don’t have a particularly seasonal pattern to the types of cases that come in at different times of year, and we have a real variety of horses in at the moment.

Our current compliment of inpatient horses includes everything from a hind limb suspensory branch injury, another with a stifle injury, one with back and hock pain, sacroiliac pain combined with forelimb lameness, and another couple of horses who are here to be brought back into work following long periods off. It’s great to have such diversity in our midst, but it does make our record-keeping super important so that we know who is due for what and when!

We’re now in the middle of the Easter holidays in terms of college term-time, and that brings with it the onset of ‘big show season’ at Hartpury.

This week we play host to the Blue Chip Show Jumping Championships (pictured) with the NAF Five Star Winter Dressage Championships following on next week.

It’s such an odd feeling to be literally surrounded by row upon row of lorries, bringing hundreds of competitors, and yet our yard remains an unchanged, calm oasis in the middle of the hustle and bustle. The horses barely seem to notice the difference, which is incredible really. I think they just wake up one morning and wonder where the party has come from.

It might not sound like the ideal situation for a therapy centre, but I do think it’s good for the horses to keep being reminded about competition life. It keeps them interested to have an ever-changing view, and is a really good education for our young horses.

Before the shows started I took advantage of the vast number of advertising banners that are up in the massive indoor Hartpury Arena, long reining our young dressage horse around the perimeter to get him used to seeing such things. He also did a bit of prize-giving practice whilst he was in there, and was quite happy to stand and face the rows of seats where (hopefully) his adoring fans will be in a few years’ time! Prize-giving practice was really quite entertaining, but on a serious note, I want him to leave here having experienced as many situations that he is likely to face in the future as possible.

Within the realms of sense and safety, I do believe in maintaining the horses’ grasp on reality as far as we can during their stay.

Final preparations for Valegro

The Easter bank holiday was also business as usual for us and this week has saw us complete Valegro’s last two water treadmill sessions prior to him leaving for the World Cup Finals in Las Vegas.

Charlotte Dujardin came with him for one of these and it was great to chat to her about preparations in the build up to such an important show. She took some pictures and videos whilst she was here and, should I ever forget the power of social media, I was certainly reminded of it this morning when I looked at Facebook: 95,000 views and counting of a video she posted of Blueberry working on our treadmill. I think that is quite astonishing. It’s only when you see numbers like this that you remember how important that horse is to so many people, including us. We never ever take for granted how lucky we are to be able to work with him.

We wish Blueberry and his groom Alan a safe flight over to the States and all the very best to Charlotte as she bids to retain her World Cup title and wow the Vegas crowds in the process.

Good luck!

Fizz

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We’re back up and running after our Christmas break and were very fortunate to be in the position of having horses waiting to arrive or come back to us after a brief interlude at home over the festive period.

Our whole team had a really good break and so we’re all well rested and ready for the year ahead.

I think I was quite literally the most fresh-faced of all of us having spent nine days at home in Scotland over the holidays – I forgot how much colder it is up there!

Christmas offers me the chance to catch up with my family and also pursue some of my interests outside of horses.

One of these is clay pigeon shooting and although I’m no deadeye by any means, I very much enjoy it. My dad is a really good shot and helps me a lot with my shooting. As with many things, I just don’t get to do it as often as I’d like so it’s great when I do get the chance. It’s a bit of a contrast to my horse-related sports, particularly Eventing.

I’ve read about lots of jockeys playing golf as an alternative pastime to racing and I think it’s probably a similar contrast. I’m reliably informed that shooting is all about balance, timing and precision but I’m not sure how many of those qualities feature in my repertoire!

Although I do it for fun, my competitive streak is never very far from the surface and I like to have a crack at some of the higher stands and challenge myself a bit. It’s really quite a different lifestyle when I go up north but I do love it. A change is as good as a rest they say.

Presents for all

It’s true to say that we use a fair amount of kit to rehabilitate our horses, and amongst the big stuff like the high-speed and Aquafit water treadmills, we also need a full compliment of electrotherapy equipment to do our job.

I bought us a new Interferential machine (pictured top) in December which arrived just in time for Christmas, although the fridge magnet Scrabble we received for the office was probably the more popular of the two as far as presents go!

We get our machines from EMS Physio Ltd who are long-standing suppliers to us and a super to deal with.

The Interferential machines are made for human use and we don’t adapt them from this, which does mean that we have to take great care of them as they are not particularly horse-proof.

Interferential therapy is key to our ability to manage pain in our patients, but isn’t really a spectator sport. The effects of most of the types of treatment the machine provides are not visible to the eye and the horse should literally relax and go to sleep throughout if the machine is working as it should.

It is very labour intensive, as each individual treatment (or block as we call them) takes 20mins and one horse may have need three or four different blocks each day. We stand with them for the entire duration of their treatments to ensure both horse and machine stay where they should and so it’s not the most popular job in winter!

So why do we use it? Well, in the first instance, the effects of this type of therapy are far more exciting than the logistics.

Interferential therapy is really clever in that it has the physiological effects of low frequency electrical stimulation, without the associated discomfort within superficial tissues such as the skin.

To achieve this it works on a medium frequency that effectively mimics low frequency currents, thus allowing the user to treat deeper tissues without the pain of low frequency stimulation.

We use it to provide pain relief in backs, necks, hindquarters — basically anywhere you can get the pads to stay — to reduce or remove the need for drug therapy.

Interferential can also be used to innervate muscle and generate activity within the tissues, which is really useful for horses who are not yet ready for a lot of work as you are in effect stimulating specific muscle groups whilst the horse is standing still.

We also use it for those who have pain or atrophy in deep tissues that can’t be externally palpated, such as Illiopsoas, a muscle situated within the pelvic cavity, which is a really important contributor to hind limb flexion and engagement.

Interferential is not a stand-alone treatment for us and would not replace a dynamic work session, but it is very good at supporting muscular development in a horse restricted to controlled exercise.

Looking ahead

January is looking really busy so far, particularly in the number of research projects we have been asked to assist with or facilitate.

Dissertation season is fast approaching for many students here at Hartpury and we are involved in a number of studies, the data collection for which all seems to fall at the end of this month.

There are a variety of projects on the go, all of which will be aimed at scientific publication and so there is a lot to do in terms of recruiting different horses for different studies. To this end we have a bank of student and staff horses who we train up on our treadmills for such purposes throughout the year.

My own horse Charlie is committed to about four different studies so far this month already — I have a feeling he features so much in projects that he will warrant a Nobel Prize for his contribution to developments in equine kinematics by the end of 2015!

Fizz

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Some of the most intensive and important exercise we undertake with horses referred to us is the work we do with them from the ground. It really is our bread and butter and may include either lunging or in-hand proprioceptive work, but most often will involve a period of long reining at some point.

We are particularly busy at the moment and as many of our horses are around the same stage in their rehab, the girls and I reckon we walk miles each day behind the horses between us!

I was asked to do a lecture demo for a group of second year degree students recently on the subject of long reining and it got me thinking about all the uses we find for it.

I have been long reining horses for years, having being taught how by my very first boss Jo Luton, so I could help start youngsters that came in to be backed. As soon as we had established ‘turn’ and ‘stop’ in the school, they went straight out along the lovely quiet lanes around my home in Scotland.

Jo reckoned that long reining helped establish their confidence and willingness to go forwards, as well as the beginnings of contact, straightness and cementing steering controls in place.

I still adhere to these basic principles, if not in a slightly adapted form — for a start we are missing the quiet back roads around Hartpury that we were so fortunate to have at home.

There are many reasons that we long rein horses rather than lunge them, the foremost of which is straightness; it’s amazing how many horses wiggle about when they have no help from a rider to, quite literally, keep them on the straight and narrow.

We also long rein them for accuracy and control. For example if the horse is restricted to straight lines and square turns only by the vet or therapist, then we may be able to achieve this more effectively in long reins than with a single line.

Two line exercise also allows us to do lateral work with the horses, along with other movements such as rein back. We can switch them between true and counter bend, and improve the quality of their half-halts and transitions.

A horse who is difficult or fussy in the contact can be helped by working them in long reins, and we often couple them with side reins to aid consistency in these type of cases.

In some respects, I think long reining beyond breaking in young horses has become a bit of a lost art. It seems that if there no specific reason to do it then people don’t even think about it as a way of working their horse, or indeed that they just don’t feel confident enough.

It’s a great skill to have and basically, if you have decent feel when you ride you will be pick up long reining no bother at all. We use light cord lines which run freely through the rings on the roller, and enable a more refined feel than with heavier material. Thicker lunge lines will do the job if that’s what you have available, but you have to remember that the further away you are from the horse, the more drag there will be on the mouth due to the weight of the line itself.

So my rule is basically that you should only be far enough away from the horse that you are well out of kicking distance!

We start all of our horses as if they have never had long reins on before to be safe, and I find that if something does spook them then it’s best if you go with them and bring them back to you as you go.

Standing stock still and pitching my weight against a 600kg horse has never really gone that well for me to be honest! You should always be on the move when long reining so it’s a bit of a work out.

End of the season

We’ve had a new wave of outpatients starting to use our services of late, largely those who were waiting until the end of their respective season or competition schedule to make a change to the horse’s routine.

Likewise we have a couple of horses who have been out with injury and are now coming back into work in preparation for the new year. Some of these are coming to us to use the Aquafit water treadmill and it’s always really nice to put more lovely horses on our books. They’ve all taken to it well so far and we look forward to getting them going over the winter — hopefully the owners will reap the benefits of their investment over the coming months.

A new addition

My horse Charlie is getting a new ‘little sister’ this week, as I await the imminent arrival of a four-year-old chocolate Labrador. Her name is Damson and she will be as involved as he is in proceedings around here as I’ve already primed our resident canine hydrotherapist, Tessa Lewis of Cotswold Dog Spa, to include her on her list of ‘demo dogs’. I’m told she loves water which is handy!

I have a feeling that will be a few Damson adventures to report in the coming weeks — watch this space…

Fizz

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An ambulance service has been forced to apologise after a rider had to wait more than two hours following a serious showjumping accident last month (26 October).

Charlotte Goord was catapulted out of the saddle when her horse, Ellie, paddled through a spread during a British Showjumping competition at Hartpury College in Gloucestershire.

“I remember coming to the jump and feeling her misjudge it really badly. Then I heard my neck crunching and then I blacked out,” she told H&H.

The 19-year-old hit the ground at speed, and a doctor and an on-site first aider were concerned that she might have serious neck injuries, and so called the emergency services.

After waiting for more than two hours in the arena, with her head immobilised in a brace, the student was eventually taken to Gloucestershire Hospital in an ambulance.

“I have been incredibly lucky as it turned out only to be severe bruising,” Miss Goord said. “But it could have been much more serious and waiting for all that time was a bit ridiculous.”

South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) told H&H that the hold-up was due to it “experiencing a particularly high demand in the area”.

“SWASFT would like to apologise for the delay in getting an ambulance to this incident,” said a spokesman.

“We are confident that the doctor on the scene was able to help the patient while an ambulance was on its way.”

A spokesman from Hartpury College added that he was “surprised” at the length of time it took.

“We have never waited more than 20 minutes for an ambulance in the past,” he said.

“It’s very difficult as obviously you don’t know what else was going on in the country at the same time, but it is something we are looking into with the ambulance service.”

This news story was first published in Horse & Hound magazine (6 October 2014).

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We’re well into the swing of having all the students back with us now at Hartpury, and have a couple of new faces in our staff team to boot.

Every year we have a new graduate intern join us and this time it is the turn of Jess Smith. Jess is a Hartpury graduate, who helped us out throughout her degree so we know her really well.

Our other newbie is Hannah Slator, who we have appointed as therapy centre assistant. Both she and Jess support assistant manager Kerry-Anne in running our yard. The girls all get on fantastically well and are super good at what they do, which makes my job pretty easy really!

I never take for granted just how important it is to have the right balance within our team and what achieving this can do for how much everyone gets out of their job.

I’m a big fan of the BBC Three’s The Call Centre, where the CEO Nev insists that “happy people sell”. I think this is true in any industry, but particularly when working with horses, where the dedication and hard work required means that sometimes it can be a bit of a slog. Our saying would be more along the lines of “Happy people make happy horses” but it’s the same principle.

Making sure that my guys are settled and content in their jobs is something that I see as a priority. This doesn’t mean that I don’t push them and challenge them, quite the opposite I hope, but more that they feel supported no matter what.

Because we are a small team, with a relatively small number of horses to care for (we take up to eight residents at any one time) we do get really attached to each horse.

We had a lovely dressage horse leave yesterday who’s been with us for a fair amount of time and there was a bit of tear shedding in the barn after he’d pulled away in the lorry. It sounds really soft, but the horses have such a vast amount of work put into them whilst they’re here that we get to know them inside out and genuinely miss them when they go.

The A-Listers

Along with our vets and therapists, our team of farriers are at the very heart of the business.

Although we get lots of the same type of problem fairly regularly, one of the most varied areas of our work relates to issues associated with foot confirmation and/or balance. This can take many forms, be that collapsed heels, poor medio-lateral balance or other common complaints such as toe-in conformation.

All of these issues will have an effect on the horse’s posture and how it moves. It sounds obvious, but how horse actually loads each foot is also hugely important, and there is a chicken-and-egg type of relationship between conformation, loading patterns and injury. We have a really interesting case of this at the moment and tasked with helping us resolve the problem is farrier Kelvin Lymer of Sandpitt Forge.

The horse in question sustained an injury to the right fore lateral-collateral ligament, which is situated within the hoof capsule. We have been struggling to normalise his loading pattern, which basically saw him putting too much weight on to the lateral (outside) aspect of his hoof, thus straining the site of his injury. To prevent him from doing this Kelvin has put a pair of roller motion aluminium bar shoes (quite a mouthful I know!) on his front feet (pictured top).

The shoe works by reducing the peak forces which affect the horse’s foot during the landing phase of each stride, thereby minimising the stress on the injured ligament.

Aluminum is lighter than regular steel and reduces the forces incurred by the weight of a regular shoe. The shoe is essentially curved on all external edges, so that the only flat aspect is a 1cm (approx) band of metal around the inside part of the shoe, rather being flat across the whole breadth of the shoe as would normally be the case. I’ve personally never seen anything like it, but we’re very happy as it seems to be doing the job we want it to.

I find the whole subject of foot balance and shoeing fascinating and it is definitely something I really enjoy learning about. I’d love to have a much more in-depth knowledge than I do, but then that is what the experts are for. What I have learnt is the impact that good foot balance and application of an effective shoeing strategy can have. It doesn’t just affect the hoof itself, but can influence the way a horse stands, moves and the amount of power it is able to generate.

That’s why our farriers are most definitely amongst the A-Listers in my book – they really do have the ability to make or break a case for us.

Fizz

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Last week saw the first intake of new students at Hartpury and so far we’ve done three induction tours, alongside all the exercising and treating of our inpatient horses as normal.

The next couple of weeks will see us doing a few more of these events, the point of which is to include as many students as possible in our activities throughout the year. This may involve becoming one of our many volunteer students, or putting forward their horses to be trained up on equipment such as the high-speed treadmill to use for our various teaching, research and marketing activities.

Working with students is a huge part of what we do here, but there is no compensation made in terms of the level we operate at. The students fit in alongside my team, working at the standard we set, maintaining the highest professional bar across the board.

We’ve had to work hard to prove that this recipe works; we are after all wholly client-facing, and the care of their horses is our primary concern. The client must have confidence in what we do and how we do it while their horses are with us, as must the vets and therapists we work with.

To ensure we continue to do our job properly in terms of the care that the horses receive, our students are never left unsupervised in any situation. They all volunteer to give us their time and all really want to be here. They help us pamper the horses and provide those vital extra pairs of hands to go above and beyond what is expected. In return for their help we are able to prepare them for the realities of working with horses, be that specifically in a veterinary/therapy environment, or out in the industry generally.

If we are doing our job properly then we should underpin and complement our students’ academic studies, giving them insight and understanding that you just can’t get from a paper or textbook.

There is a long-standing claim that college or university students are no good practically; well, not on my watch.

They work hard and we offer them as much knowledge and exposure to as many different things as we can. We develop their skills and ultimately make them feel part of something that they can be proud of, knowing that they have contributed to the success of each case during their time with us.

As you can probably tell, I’m pretty passionate about what we do here in terms of our role in teaching and learning, but it’s something that we take great pride in and an amazing amount of satisfaction from.

I hate the clichés but ‘giving back’ is one that I will allude to; I’m really grateful for the opportunities given to me throughout my career so far and if we can do this for even just some of our students, then I think we absolutely should.

Gold rush

It’s good to be back to normal having been ‘woman-down’ over the first week and a bit of the World Equestrian Games: our Assistant Manager Kerry-Anne has been working for the Canadian Para-dressage team since 2011 and was out in Normandy with them for the first 10 days of the Games. Having groomed for the team at the London 2012 Paralympics, it was another chance for her to experience something amazing, so it was all hands on deck here to make sure she was able to go.

I tried to catch as much of the dressage and eventing reports from WEG as possible and what a rollercoaster week of sport it was. All work was put on hold at 3.15pm for around 8 minutes on the Friday to watch Charlotte and Valegro attempt to follow up their gold in the grand prix special with another in the freestyle.

A fly on the wall would have witnessed the sight of four of us squashed in round my laptop, bobbing along to their music from the film How to Train Your Dragon, followed by absolute jubilance in confirmation that they’d won gold.

In my humble opinion, I have never seen Valegro look better. The ease and grace with which they floated through their test was just spellbinding. He looked so fit, and bar the necessary movement in the one-time changes, you’d swear that Charlotte didn’t actually move at all. It was truly an honour to watch such a performance, particularly under the pressure of a prerequisite of 89% or better to beat Damon Hill’s efforts.

When the camera panned to their support crew at the end, it brought a tear to my eye seeing Bluberry’s loyal groom Alan Davies, who is a good friend of mine, completely overcome with the emotion of achievement and the weight of what it had taken to get them there. It’s truly humbling to know someone who cares that much about what they do and is so brilliant at it, but yet so modest in success. What a truly remarkable achievement by the whole of the team.

Fizz

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We have really been feeling the heat these last couple of weeks here at Hartpury, and that has meant lots of early morning exercise sessions to keep the horses cool. We also have massive fans to keep the temperature down in the treadmill room. They don’t half blast you when they’re going, I think we’re experiencing forces of around 3Gs standing in front of the fans when they are turned up full!

Horses are exceptionally good at generating heat and so we use the fans on the treadmill to simulate natural airflow, particularly when cantering during a high-speed exercise test for instance. However, with temperatures up to and around 27°C here at the moment, we have the fans on all the time while the horses are working, even if they are just walking and trotting. An added bonus is that it tends to back the keen ones off a little, replicating the air resistance that would be encountered whilst working outside.

The college has such a buzzy atmosphere normally that you really notice when it’s quiet. The light mornings and warm sunny evenings really highlight this stillness and there is a totally different feel about the place. One of our horses has just started his canter work and the views that greeted he and I yesterday morning as we worked our way up to the top of the hills around Hartpury (pictured top) made getting out of bed early to avoid the heat totally worthwhile. Much as I like our normal hive of activity for most of the year, I do appreciate the quiet times which allow you to take a breath.

It’s never quiet for long however, with the Festival of Dressage just last week (pictured below), we are now in the midst of the RDA National Championships this weekend. Although we’re open as usual for business in terms of our therapy work, we also have a role to play at some of the major events such as the dressage festival, and for the NAF International Hartpury Horse Trials, which is rolling ever closer with only a couple of weeks to go.

The job of our Therapy Centre team is to run the trot-ups for these events, and we assist in the D box at the end of the cross-country for the horse trials as well. Let me loose with a clipboard and radio and I become a demon. We pride ourselves on being as efficient as possible when it comes to getting through the whole affair, which can take a bit of doing on the Sunday morning after the Saturday night of horse trials week! It’s all good fun though and the running of these big events is a massive college-wide team effort.

Speaking of trot-ups, we are in the midst of finishing our beautiful new addition (below), which will be ready in time for the horse trials. Having a hard surface which is safe, level and straight to assess horses on is vital to us. We have a hard circle integrated at one end of the trot up so horses can be observed on a turn also. The circle is 12m diameter so it’s not too small, but does a good job of showing up lameness’ that are affected by increased torque.

Whether a lameness is more prevalent on a hard or soft surface is often of significance in the diagnostic process and the majority of our cases will be observed trotting up by their vet and/or therapist as a routine part of tracking their progress. We are nearly there with our new trot-up strip — it is just awaiting its non-slip grit top coating, the fencing and then a bit of landscaping to make the whole thing look pretty. I find it ironic that the final landscaping and beautifying process is done with a JCB — who knew elegance could come in so many forms?

Fizz

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Since my last blog I have been much busier than I expected I would be, which is great!

I am very excited to tell you about my new rides, which I have gained in the past few weeks. Firstly, I went to ride a difficult four-year-old who was presenting some issues to his owner and other riders.

He is young and has some habits which have prevented him developing to his full potential. He is by Stedinger and needs some discipline to enable him to continue with his ridden work. At times, he is not for the faint-hearted but, as my horse is out of work, I have taken him for the owners to see if things can get better. He has great paces and a lot of talent.

The Special One arrives

Shortly after this I was asked to ride another four-year-old, the stunning Newton Feronia — by Floriscount/Rubinstein. She had no name other than The Special One, so we named her Diva. I was to ride her in the international four-year-old class at Hartpury Premier league and the Badminton young dressage horse final.

My trainer and international judge and rider Isobel Wessels helped me secure the ride, and I was so excited to meet her. Diva came to me the week before the classes so we could have a little time to get to know each other before competing. I started with a lesson with Isobel to get things going, which was fantastic.

Diva was only backed in February and she had only been to two competitions in her life, so I had no idea how she was going to cope with the atmosphere of a bigger show. I had never ridden a four-year-old class before and I had received instruction to follow the horse in front as you go in the arena in pairs. A test is called and you both do it together.

But when it came to it, the other horse had withdrawn, so I had no one to follow and could barely hear the caller, with sudden wind and a rain shower blowing through. However, she did her owner/breeder Lorna Wilson and I proud.

We made it into the top six, so went back in for the final go-round. She settled beautifully and we ended up fifth with 76.6%. What a great day and I am so thankful to all who made it happen.

Badminton — a joy but a challenge

She then had one day off before setting off to Badminton. I was up at 4.45am to bring her in from the field to plait her. She was a little bit nervous travelling as she had only ever been in a horsebox for the first time to Hartpury.

The show at Badminton was very interesting — we hacked down a fair distance to the school for the arena walk. It’s a small indoor with space for spectators and lovely flowers and a very scary judges table. It was difficult to get her near to the table as it was all so new to her.

We hacked back to warm-up, which is on open grassland among the Pony Club, which was a bit distracting for her. Then we hacked down again to the arena as we were first in at 8.30am in an enormous class. She was very good in the test, a little spooky but I couldn’t have asked any more of her. The judges gave us high marks for paces, however, our mark was lowered due to her spooking and tension, but that was expected as it was only her fourth show.

It was an amazing experience to be able to compete in young horse classes which I have never done before and I loved every moment of it. I don’t know our placing as we had to leave as the class continued until 3pm and we needed to get Diva home.

The good news kept coming as Lorna, Diva’s owner, said I could keep her, so you will be seeing a lot more of our partnership in the future, starting with the BEF Excel talent day in a couple of weeks! So after having no rides, I currently have two four-year-olds and, in four weeks, Kaja returns to work.

She is still on a strict programme of controlled walking for 12 minutes twice a day, every day, which she isn’t best pleased about as she would much rather be doing pirouettes and changes instead! It’s not long to go before we take her back to see how her fracture is recovering, and hopefully then I’ll be able to start working her again gradually and be able to compete her again. I can’t wait!

I will also be doing an equine-based modelling job in a couple of days, so there will be pictures to follow in my next blog.

Chloe

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The past couple of weeks have been crazy! In my last blog we were packing and on our way to Hickstead, with six horses, two lorries, two grooms and our trainer, Angela [Weiss].

Reece (Valerius) contested the para grade IV summer championships, which was also part of our selection for the World Equestrian Games (WEG). He’s had a bit of time off with a few niggles, so we didn’t go into it feeling the most prepared. In fact he was like a fire breathing dragon on the first day of training, so he was clearly feeling better. He got 74% in the team test — a fairly average performance for him — he wasn’t at his best, but he did what he needed to do to win the class.

We worked on his trot for day two to get it more connected and forward while maintaining the cadence. We had torrential rain and a horrible thunderstorm just before I got on; the thunder and lightening felt like it struck one of the stables.

However, Reece is quite use to the rain, and splashing through puddles. Deb Criddle told me seven years ago when I was new to the performance side of the sport: “Use mother nature to your advantage — ride in the rain, wind, hot sun, you don’t know when you will have to during competition”. Very good advice!

Although I thought Reece’s second day of competition was better than the previous, despite the weather, the judges didn’t agree and gave us 69%. But later we checked and the sheet had been added up wrong. So we got 71% — better, but still not what we wanted.

Jorge (C Fatal Attraction, pictured top having a snooze) was super at the show. The more we do, the better our relationship is and our bond is getting stronger. He went well on the first day in the team test to gain 71% and second behind Reece. Then on the second day, he wasn’t so keen on the lake at the C end of the arena or the rest of the arena being fairly under water, which resulted in some understandable tension. However he came out with 69% and the same score as Reece, apart from collectives, which was a bit bizarre!

You live and you learn

I had a tricky show at the Hickstead Premier League. David (Forever Himself) was not a fan of the arena and all the distractions. He was very tense in the prix st georges (PSG) so I decided to retire him in the canter work. It’s not something I do very often, but he got to the point where it was getting worse and it wasn’t fair on him to carry on. The next day in the inter I he was tense, but he was manageable. It was far from his best test, but he got through it and learnt from it hopefully.

Noki (Pinoccio) didn’t feel himself. He had little energy and I was worried about him — we made quite a lot of mistakes and lacked energy in both the inter II and grand prix. I got our team vet to check his heart, which was normal for him, which was a relief, and got his bloods tested when I got home.

Hartpury here we come

On to Hartpury. This was Jorge’s first international, which was exciting and a proud moment. The same team were supporting us, two different grooms to get experience, and the World Class team were also there. It was my first senior international at big tour — very exciting but also very scary! It was also the final selection for the paras for WEG too, so pressure was on.

Reece showed his lack of work the past month or so, and was quite looky in the first test. Jorge was very concentrated though, so I thought he might have the edge and take the lead over his stable-mate. But Reece won with 72%, followed by Jorge on 69%.

In the individual Reece was getting better, and his mark improved to 74% as did Jorge’s to break that 70% barrier. Reece qualified through to the freestyle, which was moved to just before Noki’s grand prix. I was so nervous for the grand prix that I had to really focus on Reece and try and put it out my mind. It worked and Reece was back to form, gaining 80%.

Quick Swap: paras to grand prix; horses and bridles

A change of jackets and horses, and I was immediately warming up for the grand prix. Noki was quite strong and forward in the warm-up, so I struggled to get him together. I had to get him listening and hope the movements came off!

Quick swap into the double bridle after my first part of warm up in the snaffle (as I struggle to cope with all the reins). I got through the test and didn’t know how it felt; it was a bit of a blur because I was so nervous!

I didn’t expect to qualify for the freestyle, as all the riders that had got there were better than we were, so I was happy if I could do a good test. 63.8% I was happy with, and even happier the head judge at C gave us over 66% and two other judges 65%. We qualified for the freestyle in 11th place, so I was over the moon.

Dancing Shoes On

The rest of my para team decided they would stay and support me, which was nice, so we all stayed in the lorries and had a chilled day before the freestyle in the evening. I stretched the other boys, and watched the inter I class of the international before I started to prepare for my test, listening to my new music. It was hard to find something to follow Noki’s Pinocchio music I used for the Paralympics and small tour. But I love it.

The freestyle went OK. We had a bit of a miscommunication at the start, as he likes to know where he’s going, so being our first grand prix kur, it was a bit new, but the canter work came off and it mainly fitted to the music! The German judge Peter Engel gave us 71% for second, but overall we finished 6th with 66%, which I’m so happy with.

We left just after 11pm and drove home getting back after 2am at which point we had all five horses to put to bed!

Next Stop World Equestrian Games

The WEG team was announced after that weekend, and I’m delighted to say Reece and I have been selected, with Noki & Jorge as my direct reserves. I’m so proud of them, and it’s a real testament to what we have been trying to do building up a strong string during the past few years.

A big big thank you to Team Wells, all my sponsors and supporters, owners that continue to support my dreams, and friends and family. It’s much appreciated! Thank you!

Sophie x

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The biggest names in British dressage are doing battle at the Hartpury Festival of Dressage (9-13 July). The show encorporates the Hartpury Premier League, CDI and para international competitions.

On day one, the huge prix st georges (PSG) was split into two sections, with Michael Eilberg and Woodlander Farouche topping one. Watch highlights from their test below:

“The test felt great and she was lovely to ride,” said Michael of the eight-year-old Furst Heinrich mare. “She felt more composed despite the big atmosphere, and the canter pirouettes had a lot more jump, even though I rode them too big. She jogged a bit in her extended walk, which dropped me a few marks, but she is coming on great and her trot work felt really special.”

Michael also posted a second win on the show’s opening day riding Farouche’s dam Woodlander Dornroschen. The pair scored 70.22% to lead the inter II class. They will also contest the Premier League grand prix today.

“I was really pleased, but she tried to push a dropping out during her test,” added Michael. “I keep telling dad [Ferdi Eilberg] that we can’t let the horses stop to do their business at home because it carries through to the competition arena, but dad hates droppings getting mixed up in the school surface.”

In the other PSG section, Charlotte Dujardin triumphed with her relatively new ride, Barolo. watch Charlotte’s ride below:

Judge Peter Storr said: “Barolo is a very nice horse and the test was really well ridden, as you would expect from a rider like Charlotte. She didn’t give a mark away, except in the collected walk, which wasn’t always in the same rhythm.”

Read Horse & Hound magazine’s full report from Hartpury’s Festival of Dressage, which will be on sale 17 July 2014

Thanks to Hartpury College for providing these videos.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

A new equestrian festival for students is to run at Hartpury College, Glos, from 11-13 June.

The three-day festival will be run by Student Equestrian and includes competitions in all three Olympic disciplines.

It includes dressage classes from prelim to medium, eventing from BE80 to novice level and showjumping from 70cm to 1.10m.

For more information, visit www.studentequestrian.co.uk

This news story was first published in Horse & Hound magazine (7 March 2013)

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now

A government funded sports performance programme — already used for other mainstream sports — will soon be available to talented riders looking to perform at the highest level.

Hartpury College in Gloucestershire will be offering the Advanced Apprenticeship in Sporting Excellence (AASE) from this September, to riders aged 16-19.

The course will be run in conjunction with British Dressage (BD), British Eventing (BE) and the British Equestrian Federation (BEF), with discipline specific programmes for dressage, para dressage and eventing.

Apprentices will combine their riding with units aimed at preparing them for all aspects of life in a professional sport.

“This is a great new initiative for [people] who are driven to become the elite riders of tomorrow,” said BD’s Jo Brown.

“AASE provides a great way to combine a focus on a competitive dressage career with the opportunity to learn all the additional skills which make athletes successful.”

Chris Farr from BE added: “The ability to combine academic study with the development of high performance sport tuition has been a resounding success in other sports.

“Now is the perfect opportunity for equestrian athletes to take up this fantastic opportunity.”

Riders must meet specific criteria set by BD and BE to be considered for the initiative, and those who are selected will have the choice of completing the course at Hartpury or at home. Candidates will be able to study A Levels alongside the apprenticeship.

For more information visit www.hartpury.ac.uk

Hartpury College in Gloucestershire is hosting a show jumping “spectacular” the weekend before Olympia, with more than £40,000 prize-money on offer to winners.

The show, from 14-16 December, includes a puissance and top-class show jumping during day and evening performances, as well as a number of displays from an aerial trapeze act to a polo demonstration and Spanish horse display.

Visit www.hartpury.ac.uk/showjumping for more details and to buy tickets.

Stay in touch with the latest news from Hartpury throughout the show with H&H’s reports on www.horseandhound.co.uk

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now