Biography
I have grown up on my Dad's training yard in Worcestershire and probably started riding when I was about four or five although Dad always used to pick me up on to the horse he was riding as a toddler and hand me the reins! I did all the normal kind of things on ponies - pony club, hunting, riding club one day events - a bit of everything really.
It started getting a bit more intense when I was 11 and found a pony that was very talented for show jumping. I loved the two years spent on 138's and did all the national qualifiers as well as the Home Pony Teams on Mr. Checkmate, and also had a great time on 148's. I qualified one for the Junior Foxhunter at HOYS and got just four faults and had another good JA that I rode in all the bigger classes. This taught me a lot about distances and not to be scared of big fences! I was talent spotted for the very first Start Programme through World Class while still on ponies and got all set for a career in show jumping. While on the Programme I spent nearly a year at Tim Stockdale's as a working student and had two visits to Hauke Luther in Germany.
I returned home and hoped to build up a bit of a string but there were always dressage horses coming in for schooling rather than jumpers and it just made more sense for me to concentrate my efforts and earn a living that way. I first competed in dressage in 2007 and won my first National Title in the Advanced Medium Championships on Janeiro in 2008 when my sister Maria won the National Champion title! I joined the World Class development squad at the start of 2009 and won the Advanced Medium Open National Championships on Woodlander Dornroeschen (Rosie).
2010 was a very important year for me as I rode my first Grand Prix and had two horses at Big Tour, Monet and Marakov. Rosie did extremely well on the Sunshine Tour where she and I shared the spoils with Maria and Rocky in all the classes we entered. Rosie did well at Small Tour and I also competed Rocky a few times for Maria, and he did very well in the Small Tour at the Hickstead CDI3*. I feel that my dressage career became established in 2010.
I am also extremely privileged to have the ride on the stunning Woodlander Farouche, who is Rosie's daughter. In 2010 Farouche won every young horse class she contested and was the Badminton Young Dressage Horse Champion, beating all the five year olds as well (when she was just four)!
In March 2011 Farouche did her first international, and went very well to won three out of four 5yr old classes. She posted a score of 94% twice and 92%. Fullfilling her promise to be a real star, she won the 5 year old Young Horse World Championships in Germany later in the year, and will hopefully, contest the 6 year old World Championships in 2012.
The 2011 National Championships was a good show for me with a stream of wins including the Prix St Georges with Woodlander Dornroeschen (Farouche's mum), the Intermediare 1 with Half Moon Delphi (I was also 2nd with Torino), the Intermediare 1 Supreme Championship with Torino, the 5 year old Potential International Dressage Horse Final with Woodlander Farouche and I was also runner up in the Grand Prix Championship with Marakov!