Favourite Links

As promised - find below the links to my two favourite websites. These two sites can keep you entertained for hours and you will be amazed how knowledgable and helpful some of the people are on the sites.

http://www.horse-directory.co.uk/exracers.htm

http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forums

The first steps to glory (we hope!)

Now that I have caught up with myself time wise i.e. I am now writing this in the present if that makes sense, rather than taking you through the past, I can let you know the plan. As you know (if you have trawled through the rest of my blatherings) the status so far is:

1) One ex steeplechaser bit knackered but now completely sound
2) One rider still pretty knackered but too bloody minded to let that get in the way
3) A plan to turn said horse and rider into an eventing partnership even though the horse has never been near a school and the rider has never tried to retrain a horse before!

So, the obvious next step is to find Sam and I a very patient trainer who is willing to help him and I build up our schooling right from the very basics. To put the need for “basics” into perspective, Sam and I can now just about canter round the school but friends have referred to the spectacle as the “wall of death” as it is pretty hairy to watch. The long and short being we need A LOT of help.
As the last time I looked for a trainer I was still at Pony Club and based in darkest Somerset I didn’t have any contacts that I could call on. Plus my friends are about as horsey as my boyfriend i.e. not sure which end to pat and so they weren’t much help either. This is when the combined forces of the BHS website, the Horse & Hound forum and the ex racers forum came into their own to help me find suitable candidates. For those who have never been onto the Horse & Hound or ex racers forum I recommend them both highly. I have been known to avoid an entire morning’s work courtesy of these wonderful sites! In my next blog I will include links to both so that others can share in their wonder…

The move South Dec 2005 to April 2006

I'm not keen to go into details on this site as to where Sam and I hang out, as you never know who reads these things (although that’s me wishfully thinking that anyone will read this site!). Anyway, without mentioning specific locations I had my initial drunken meeting with Sam up in Cheshire where he was based and I had just moved to. My move up there was with work and meeting and taking on Sam, to be honest, was my one saving grace as I am a southern girl through and through and missed my family and friends far too much being stuck up North. Anyway, being at the other end of England did finally become too much and so after much negotiation in my company it was finally agreed that I could move back to the London office which of course meant finding a new home down South for Sam.

After ignoring my boyfriend's suggestion that we "trade Dobbin in at the glue factory" I started my search for a new home for Sam in January 2006. Although I was moving back to central London I was keen that Sam remain able to spend most of his time kicking his heels in a field (I personally think it is cruel to keep a horse stable 24/7). So from January to March most weekends were spent trawling round the (many) livery yards that circle London trying to find a suitable place for him. I eventually found a perfect place that has many ex racehorses, its own gallops and is surrounded by lovely hacking countryside.

What I don’t think I mentioned earlier is that by the end of 2005 Sam was completely sound and so I had started first lunging and long-reining him and then moved onto riding by January 2006. Even though he has never been schooled in his life (just lots of moving fast in one direction!) he has very good natural paces and so as soon as I got on his back my plans went up a notch and my new aim is to start eventing him – although only small one day events no plans for Badminton or anything! As they say though “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and although he moves well that is only in straight lines and so it is going to take a lot of work to get to the stage of even staying in a dressage ring let alone looking like we know what we are doing. Anyway, with Sam moved in to his new home at the end of April our quest to become an event team had now begun in earnest...

Sam - a brief history

I thought some (if anyone ever looks at this site!) might be interested in Sam's past life in terms of what kind of race horse he was and (the million dollar question) was he any good. I can clear this one up quickly now without you even having to look at his form below. He was, bless his heart, pretty hopeless. He has impecable breeding and went to a top trainer but I think his endless desire to know what is going on meant that he was too busy checking out the other horses and the crowd to ever focus on winning anything. So there you go, never a great racer but still worth his weight in gold (sorry got a bit emotional then :)

http://www.racingpost.co.uk/horses/search_results.sd?searchtext=Torpica&searchtype=Horse&start_no=1

The road to recovery June to October 2005

In case you read the last post and thought "good grief this story is naff" I warn you it gets even more Disney! What I didn't mention earlier was that when I went out to pat the horses I did it on crutches as I had just got over the first of two operations to rebuild my knee after trashing it skiing (badly) earlier that year. So not only was I now the owner of a knackered racehorse that may never be sound again but I was in almost as bad shape as him! Anyway, after much discussion with the vet (about Sam rather than me) and a long rest in the field for him, and one more operation then rest for me we were both finally well enough to see if we would work as a riding partnership by October of 2005.

The Beginning - June 2005

Although I am supposed to be a sensible type the means by why I landed up with Sam are a little random to say the least! Whilst looking for a house up north I went to lunch with some friends who live on a racing yard. After a quite boozy meal I thought I would stagger out and go and pat some horses. All of them were out in the field apart from one very black very bored looking beast who caught my eye immediately. After fussing over him for a couple of minutes the owner of the yard appeared and told me that Sam (the big black beast) was in the stable because he had fallen at his last race the previous week (he was a steeplechaser) and as he could no longer race they just wanted to find him a good home. (Almost) without thinking I offered to take him there and then and after a brief vet check (can't do a full one with a very lame horse) and handing over the same amount of money I now spend each month on livery (!) I was the proud new owner of an ex-racehorse!

See if this works ...

Hello to anyone who has stumbled across this site! I thought as people seem to fall in love with Sam all the time that I would create a blog for him so that his fans can keep up with how he is doing. Plus it is a good way to avoid work for a couple of minutes a day. I will start adding notes as to how he is doing, how the (attempts) to turn us into a dressage partnership are going and I will add pictures as and when I get round to taking them.