Laura & Mikey- Come Back

Laura & Mikey at CTR champs

So as I write my first blog for Honeychop, as their East Anglia Honeychop Star there is one phrase that would describe this last month for me and that phrase is “come back”.

First, let me introduce myself, my name is Laura, I am 34 years old and live in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, I am the proud owner of Mikey.  Mikey is a 9-year-old Irish Sports Horse that I brought last November, he is my very first horse and its safe to say the last 10 months have been a very steep learning curve!  I brought Mikey to show jump and event, but he really is the definition of an all rounder! Since I have had him he has picked up rosettes showing, dressage, and SJ.  My heart lies in eventing – nothing can beat the feeling of getting over that last jump, having pretty much closed my eyes and screamed all the way round the course through a combination of fear and pure adrenalin!

So why does “come back” sum up my last month?

Well in short for the last three months we have been recovering from a hamstring injury.  In May I was told that Mikey had torn his off side hamstring.

Laura with Mikey 7 his pink Sash

Queue a long and slow few months getting him fixed! 3 weeks off work, 3 weeks of walking, you know the drill – time heals all!  Who knew you could spend so much time focusing on simple things like the walk-halt transition – I just hope the next time we head up the centre line and try our hand at some dressage it shows – surely having perfected that over the summer I must be on for a 9?! Well I can hope anyway.

So the hamstring is now 100% healed – I can now kick on and get back to business and more importantly get jumping regularly again! I cant let the rest of the eventing season pass me by without at least one XC run!

September has mostly been spent in the show ring – and we did pretty well! We qualified for the Chiltern Thames Rider Championships, local championship show which took place on 13^th September at Herts County Show Ground, and managed a 3^rd place in a 16 strong Ridden Coloured class, as well as 3^rd place in the equally strong Riding Club Horse class, I was over the moon as this was the first real test for Mikey up against some decent show horses so to finish with two third places I was extremely pleased.

Laura’s niece Amy with Mikey in hand

He also qualified for the championships in hand with my 15-year-old niece, who only 6 months ago had never been near a horse! Whilst Mikey was unable to compete under saddle my niece, Amy, kidnapped Mikey for the in hand show ring, picking up places every time she went out, including some red ribbons for their efforts.  We were out at some other local shows too this month, also picking up 3^rd place at Thame County Show in the Ridden Coloured class earlier this month, my niece did one better and won the in hand class – she even bagged herself £40 prize money – she doesn’t get that much pocket money so was delighted with that!

Mikey headshot

So as I write this post the next thing on my to do list is to pack, we are off to Jump Camp for a few days at The College Equestrian Centre at Keysoe later this week – I cannot wait to get back show jumping properly, and am even more excited for our first trip out on the XC course for 3 months albeit schooling and not competitively.

Next month we are off to Tim Page’s yard – I am hoping to get some tips to help improve our jumping so we can crack on this Autumn indoor SJ and Arena Eventing with as much success as we saw in the Show Ring this summer.

Until next month.

Laura and Mikey x