Settling In

After Frankie’s hair raising antics, things settled down for all of a couple of months, when some personality clashes in the yard meant that my mum decided it was time for a change of scenery. We packed up and headed to a new yard, right at the foot of the Cleveland hills. The only problem was that we were the only liveries. No other kids, no other ponies to ride, it was probably time to get serious. Over the winter that followed, I barely rode Frankie, instead my mum hacked him out and schooled him whilst I focussed on Ollie’s flatwork and jumping, which was improving, despite our fears he’d never lose his old ways. I would take him out on long hilly trails into the moors with the yard owner’s daughter who had a couple of eventers, and he loved to gallop and jump natural obstacles, which in turn gave him confidence to jump up to 3 foot in the school. This yard only had an outdoor school, and barrels and poles for jumps, which was a big come down from a competition yard, but the stables were indoors and spacious, the horses had a paddock to themselves and I couldn’t complain. It was while we were there that the yard owner took on another livery with 3 horses. Anne was disabled and competed in dressage, and she had a coloured mare that was being aimed at coloured and show hunter classes. It was Anne who saw the potential in Frankie for showing, which at any level higher than local was very new to me. By this point, we’d done more show jumping, and had been selected on pony club area teams, I particularly enjoyed cross country and I schooled him whenever I could at the yard Ian had moved to. Working Hunter seemed a logical next step, since at 14.3 he could not jump in pony classes and at 11, I didn’t fancy moving into horse classes.

We did our first local-ish show in the summer of 1998, coming I think 5th out of 6, or something, but more to the point, I’d enjoyed it, Frankie had behaved beautifully – he seemed to enjoy the attention, and we hadn’t looked out of place. However, at a higher level, his confirmation would let him down, which I soon began to realise. A long back and not being a natural weight carrier would mean he’d never get placed above a typey, chunky, short coupled cob. We’d entered the Great Yorkshire Show Welsh class and been pulled in 15th or so, which we never managed again! So, we tried working hunter. He de-noviced himself in his first ever class, winning easily. We also qualified for the British Show Pony Society winter championships, in working hunter and flat classes. This would be our first ever trip away that involved staying overnight, which seemed a pretty big deal to me.