From the Hoof

 As most of my readers know I am from England and my three horses are from England, too. I flew all three out to the US when I emigrated here.  They are very special to me.   

 I have a mare named Milly who is 21 years old. Her color is liver chestnut and she is 15 hands high (four inches = 1 hand). She has a white sock on her near foreleg and a white sock on her off hind leg. Her show name is Saint Emillion after the French red wine.  

 I have owned Milly since she was 7 1/2 years old. Milly has a hyper personality (we call it Fizzy in England). She loves to go fast and loves to jump which is good as I do too! Sadly Milly's previous owners must have ill treated her at some time as when I bought Milly she was very flighty. She did not stand still to be tacked up, would not load in a trailer, was difficult to catch from the field and did not like to be clipped. She was difficult to ride and frightened of the whip. I never carry or use one with Milly. The people at the barn I kept her were unkind by saying she had a horrible name and that she was a lunatic. After a few weeks of owning Milly, I was able to load her into a trailer by myself and she would stand still to be tacked up or clipped. I still had trouble with the catching part!  

 As I wanted to take Milly to horse shows to compete at show jumping and cross country, I invested in some lessons with a professional show jumper. Although I could already jump and had competed in show jumping in previous years I wanted to be better. The lessons were not only great fun but we were able to work on Milly's jumping problems i.e. getting her to slow down and to canter between fences as she preferred to break into a fast trot. It is hard to jump on your own as you really need to have someone to build and raise the fences. Otherwise you have to stop and get off your horse to build them which is a pain. I took Milly to competitions every weekend and we soon started winning. The people at the barn change their attitude towards Milly then and started saying was a great horse she was.

 In England, we have two types of shows affiliated shows and non affiliated shows. The non affiliated shows anyone can enter but the affiliated shows you and your horses need to be registered with that affiliated body to be able to enter affiliated shows. The latter shows cost more to enter, the jumps are bigger and so is the prize money! You also get graded depending on how well you do at each show.  

 At our first affiliated show we came second! We have lots of rosettes (ribbons) from our shows unfortunately we could only keep the trophies for a year. Milly loves to jump and she is very fast. She takes a lot of riding by which I mean you need to sit up and keep all her energy together.  She flies over the fences and never stops at a fence whatever it is.  Milly loves her routine, she only likes a short turnout in the paddock and she loves to talk. She is always neighing and whinnying to everyone. She likes to be led from the near side and she looks after everybody, her two sons and even her rider. She is excellent around children and my two boys love riding and grooming her. As you can tell she has a special place in my heart.