Horse Of The Year Show Dreams For Nikki Davies

My name is Nikki Davies and I am a 38 year old amateur rider with a goal of competing at Horse of the Year Show in the Cuddy Working Hunter. I will be blogging monthly about my journey to achieving that goal.

Meet Sisco

I bought Sisco unseen as a project. He was an unbroken 3 yo standing at 18hh and he was massive. I had never had a youngster before, and boy did I not see what was coming next! My life was about to change. It’s been a massive learning curve for me having my first ever young horse.  Sometimes I’ve often found myself wondering if I have enough knowledge or talent to do him justice…. Although, I’ve learnt it’s just 3 steps forwards and 2 steps back when it comes to having a young horse.

The start of our showing journey

I can still remember doing my first ever working hunter class and I was a complete novice. I knew nothing and went on a whim! I look back now and I laugh at myself when I think of my first ever show for the judge! Determined to learn as much as I could, I’ve spent loads of time listening to other people, watching the bigger riders at the shows, looking at what they do, when they do it, and then practicing it home. It’s been a massive journey for me, not always getting it right and lots of fails along the way.

Sisco’s turn to go showing

Sisco took to showing like a duck to water.  He was keen to jump, polite enough to come back when asked, and took everything in his stride. The judges seem to really like him too. Although still young, he had a lot of maturing to do and needed to grow into those lovely long legs of his and the feedback from the judges I got was all promising. So on that we decided to take him to Devon County Show and also Royal Cornwall to compete in the 4yo hunter class.

It was my first county show and I was nervous!! We didn’t disgrace ourselves and came 5th at Devon County and then 3rd at Royal Cornwall.

 

Future plans

Sisco and I have been training hard over this winter to improve his flat work. He fell onto the forehand a lot and had messy transitions up and down through the gaits. So, I found myself a dressage trainer that Sisco and I really clicked with, we’ve come on in leaps and bounds since training started and I’ve been competing at local dressage events this winter.

If I could give you one bit of advice it would be to find yourself a trainer that works for both you and your horse and stick with them!

I’ve also now found my jump trainer who is training me for my first county show in May 2016. We need to be jumping a track of 1m15 comfortably so we are ready for our first ever Cuddy Working Hunter.

It’s really excitingand we are training harder than ever.

So until next time.

Nikki