Category: General Blog

1. Sponsored Rider 2024 - Phillipa takes us on her journey to date....

   Posted on 12:00pm Wednesday 16th Oct 2024

   Phillipa and Wiggins last wrote about the upcoming summer months and the goals ahead of them, lets see what happened....

   

   Blog 2 – Buckle up! It’s going to be a bumpy ride…

    

   Last time I wrote, it was the beginning of June. We had just competed at the RoR regional champs. The summer had got off to a good start and we were riding on the crest of a wave…but not for long.

    

   After riding one morning, I turned Wiggins out and gave him his breakfast. I noticed that he couldn’t seem to get his head down to his bucket. I held the bucket up for him and he ate fine. I gave him a good check over but couldn’t see anything so I thought he might have pulled a muscle or something. Anyway, by the afternoon he was able to graze so I didn’t think much of it. A few days later, a lump appeared under his throat. After a week or so, the lump became an abscess and then it was panic stations. I had been taking his temperature, watching for discharge, listening for a cough…nothing. I took the precaution of isolating him just in case, but was pretty sure it wasn’t strangles. That was until the vet came. It’s fair to say she didn’t fill me with hope. The yard went into lockdown and Wiggins was isolated. I was beside myself. Not only to think that Wiggins might be really ill, but if anything happened to anyone else’s horse, I wouldn’t have forgiven myself. After what seemed like an eternity, the tests came back clear and the lump started to heal. No idea what it was, but that was June gone.

    

   We had lost a whole month, but it seemed we were back on an even keel, and as a bonus I found out we had qualified for the RoR National Championships at Aintree. I was so excited to be given the opportunity to ride at the home of the Grand National! We got back out competing and at our first competition after his time off, Wiggins won both his section and his class. I was so proud of him! But again, our elation didn’t last long…

   

    

   A new horse arrived at the yard at the beginning of August and caused a bit of a stir. Wiggins started pawing at the ground really aggressively. He did it so badly that I brought him in one day and he had worn the front of his shoe away and the clip had gone into his hoof. An emergency visit from the farrier and we seemed to have had a lucky escape. However, a couple of days later he went really lame. Cue more time off. After a couple of weeks, he seemed fine so I decided to have a little ride. It was quickly apparent that he wasn’t fine. I had booked him in for a gastroscopy clinic, so I asked the vet to have a look at him while he was there – he seemed sound (and he didn’t have ulcers!) so they suggested just giving him some more time off. Anyway, things didn’t improve. We missed the BD area festivals. Then we missed the RoR National Champs, so I arranged for nerve blocks and x-rays to be done. THEN! The day before the vet was due, I noticed a splint had popped on his front leg – the one he had been lame on. It was like a lightbulb moment. Sharon and I couldn’t believe we hadn’t thought of that before. So, over the last couple of weeks, he has slowly started coming back into work. Dare I say it, but we seem to be on the up again. Let’s see how long it lasts this time, especially with winter on the horizon!

    

   Poor Phillipa and Wiggins, it has been a rough ride for sure, but on the positive side, Wiggins has returned to work in a positive way and dare we say it, so far so good! 

    

    

2. Catching up with our sponsored rider Philippa.

   Posted on 5:00am Sunday 9th Jun 2024

   Catching up with our sponsored rider Philippa.

   

   When Sharon asked me to write a blog, I wasn’t quite sure where to start. I’ve never written one before, so this is a first. And it’s a theme of ‘firsts’ that I’m going to stick with.

    

   As you’ll know from the introductory post, Wiggins is the first ex-racehorse that I’ve owned. Through him I’ve had my first attempts at affiliated dressage, ridden at my first championships and had my first broken bones! But I’ve also had many firsts since working with Sharon – not just when I’m riding like when we tried our first flying changes – but unmounted as well, through our mindset sessions.

    

   As a typical Yorkshire lass, I’ve been very much brought up to have a ‘get on with it’ attitude – we’re very hardy us Yorkshire folk. Counselling, therapy, mindset and anything else in that sort of vein have never been something that’s been on my radar. When Sharon said a monthly mindset session was part of the sponsorship, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was sceptical. However, they are not like I expected. I have learned so much about what I can and can’t control, how to deal with the things I can’t control, how to turn a perceived negative into a positive, how to reduce tension when riding…the list goes on. The sessions really are helping me to reframe things and put a positive spin on them when they don’t go the way I wanted or hoped. And I’m not being paid to say this.

    

   Take the RoR regional championships as an example. Last year, they were an unmitigated disaster (and I know that’s not putting a positive spin on it, but they really were). Someone even told me I should have Wiggins put to sleep because he was ‘screwed in the head’. I was determined to qualify again this year but was incredibly anxious about them, hoping it wouldn’t be a repeat performance.

    

   I worry about everything – from the weather to the warm-up arena, to thinking I’ll forget the test halfway through to Wiggins being beside himself with fear. So dragging myself out to the champs again was a big ask. BUT! During the mindset sessions we worked on a plan for the warm-up, we worked on what to do if it was raining, we worked on what to do if the test went wrong, we worked on what to do if Wiggins was wound up. And as if someone knew all the things that we’d been working on, when the day came for the champs, we had all the above thrown at us!

    

   The weather was dire, I forgot a bit of the test (which I haven’t told Sharon) and lost 2 marks, the warm-up was packed, and Wiggins was shaking like a leaf as soon as I pulled the trailer ramp down. But do you know what? Despite all of that we came 3^rd – just missing out on our qualifying ticket for the nationals at Aintree. And do you know why? Because I stuck to the plan. When I saw Wiggins was shaking, I knew I had to be calm for him so I focused on my breathing and stayed calm. When it was absolutely pouring down, I just thought, ‘What’s the worst that can happen? We’ll get wet.’ When the warm-up arena was packed, I stuck to my guns and did the warm-up I wanted to do. When the judge rang the bell to say I’d gone wrong, I just re-rode the movement correctly without panicking. And doing all that paid off. And it was everything we’d talked about during our mindset sessions. 

    

   Sharon’s talking about hypnosis next…my next blog might have pictures of me dancing like a chicken – who knows?! (I don’t think that’s what she has in mind.)