A pony who was taken in by the RSPCA after he was abandoned as a yearling has competed at his first championship. Storm was rescued from a field along with a number of other ponies in 2009 and it took him a year to recover physically from his difficult start in life. But the nine-year-old colored gelding has beaten the odds to enjoy a new life to compete at the Dressage at Hickstead South East Championships on 19 May. “I spent 15 years supporting my daughter with her horses and when she went off to university I thought I should find myself a pony.
My friend was looking after him at the time and said ‘come and have a look’. He wasn’t what I was looking for, but I decided to take him on.” Jo added that Storm was rising two at the time and rather an “ugly duckling”, who has the personality of a “17hh chestnut mare inside the body of a 14hh skewbald gelding”. With the help of her daughter, trainers, and Jason Webb clinics, she started to bring him on. Jo and Storm joined the Rother Valley Riding Club’s “building rider confidence” group with the aim of enjoying some grassroots-level dressage.
“They have been fantastic with Storm, they hold clinics and everything is super low-key, with sympathetic instructors and everyone is very supportive.” The pair started at the intro, topping the members’ league table at the club last year, then moving up to prelim and qualifying for the Hickstead finals. “My initial response was ‘obviously I’m not going’,” said Jo. “But my daughter said ‘don’t be silly — be proud, take Storm out and show him off.”
The pair have also enjoyed success at British Dressage’s My Quest classes, achieving plus-73% scores, which gave them the confidence to make the trip to Hickstead. “I was just delighted with him, he stayed with me for the whole test and was super-reactive,” said Jo, who survived a couple of spooks to achieve a score of 62.2% with the pony. We have worked so hard to be able to get there and now we are going to be able to go forwards from it.”
