Chelsea, Woody & Betty
Chelsea & Woody
I am Chelsea Jones and I have been lucky enough to have been selected as the Northern Honeychop star which we feel so privileged for this opportunity to be supported by such a great company! We are looking forward to the year ahead of us working with team Honeychop and being able to represent the brand. To introduce myself to all the Honeychop fans I am 17 years old and I am from Wigan, and I am the proud owner of two fantastic horses Betty and Woody, our main discipline is Show jumping but we have also competed regularly in Dressage.
Chelsea & Betty
Betty is a 16.3, 7 year old Irish sport horse that I got last April, I got Betty to move up into seniors as we have just moved up out of juniors. I got Betty as a late 5 year old as she turned 6 not long after having her, we have had a long pathway of training over the year and looking back now has made it all worthwhile, the changes are unbelievable to look where we have come in just a year! Now I feel like we are finally getting somewhere and the slow process has been worth it! We still often struggle with drifting out turning corners in courses and staying straight which then causes us poles, also losing our collected canter then becoming flat in the canter and losing her all together. When we got Betty she had barley done anything so we have started from the basics and worked our way up. We competed in mostly dressage firstly why she was starting off to get our flat work good before we could start jumping, she has shown so much potential in her dressage also even though I got her to Show Jump, we had many lovely comments of judges saying how much potential she has and what a lovely horse she is with a beautiful movement.
Chelsea & Woody having a cuddle
Woody is a 14.2, 18 year old arab x welsh that I have had for 5 years now and I got him as my first Show jumping pony as I took a side to it when I was 13 and needed more of a jumping pony as my first pony wasn’t the jumping type for me. We have had a long journey with Woody as we brought him back to basics to get him to have a longer stride as we struggled with him mincing in his canter and getting under jumps too much. But after having lessons brought us on so much and in such a short space of time and a real noticeable difference from going to shows getting placed between 5th and 9th to winning my classes out of 60 competitors and wining my classes by like 4/5 seconds! We just really struggle with control and breaks at times as he loves his jumping and gets a little too excited!
The past couple of months has been a hard few months with Betty having a sacroiliac joint injury so we have been recovering and getting back on track with that! But she has come back better than ever and enjoying her jumping even more her first show back we took her to south view BSJA and got our first double clear in BSJA and 6th place! Before we registered her BSJA we took her on a ticket to Northcote stud and we was aiming to go have a go at the British novice but having tyres fitted on the car that morning sort of delayed us! So by the time we got there they were on the 1.05m open class! She had never been round a course that big before only one or two fences training at home, so we had a bash at it and she was fantastic I could not have been any happier we lost our cant
er as she was spooky in a new arena and she trotted around the whole course! We went clear over all of the jumps and from a trot into some of the sizes of those jumps her jump was still phenomenal with so much scope to show! We just had 1 time fault. So we decided to then get her registered and started going out doing British novice and discovery classes. But then unfortunately her injury pushed us back! 🙁 But we are back on track again now this weekend we was out and won the open class with a clear and also had a bash at the chase me Charlie now the biggest she has ever jumped was 1.10m, we jumped 1.25m I could not have been any more pleased with her, she just took it so steady in her own stride it felt so small and effortless now I am so excited to progress and get jumping the bigger tracks in the up and coming year! I just unfortunately set her up on a bad stride and we took off a little too far away and had the back rail as it was a wide triple bar!
Myself and Woody have not been out as much latley as I am now out of juniors, but I have ridden him around a few senior tracks and he still loves it! Last year we won three championship classes at Aintree, championship class at Northcote stud and trailblazers championship at Stoneleigh, so what a way to end our year in juniors! He is a pony of a lifetime and has brought me where I am now.
Make sure to look out next month to see what we have been up to!
Chelsea, Woody & Betty.
