Nic

I am a middle aged, horse obsessed Optometrist who became facinated by dressage over twenty years ago! I am very lucky to now work as a Clinical Trainer predominantly from home. This means I get to spend much more time with my horses as I am fortunate enough to keep them at home.

MY HORSES

RAINCHECK, (Raine), born 24th April 2008 and bought as a 9mth old filly. Rubinero (Rubenstein) x Burgraaf.
Raine was reserve inhand youngstock champion at Bramham Horse Trials 2010 and was awarded an Elite Dressage award at the BEF futurity evaluations in 2011.
She even had a write up in Horse and Hound which I was thrilled about!
We took part in the 4 and 5 year old Shearwater Potential International Dressage Horse qualifier class at Myerscough 2012 and 2013 and the Molloh Badmintonand she was working at Advanced Medium before she went lame Oct 2022. With a diagnosis of bilateral foot problems (inflammation in the majority of the soft tissue of both feet), I was heart broken. We have since taken the radical approach of taking her shoes off and finding a barefoot trimmer and six months on the vet is cautiously optimistic

ORIANA ASHBANK, (Oriana), born 2nd June 2019 bought as a 6mth old filly. For Ferrero x Gribaldi.
Unfortunately she grew very quickly initially and in December 2020 needed Tim Booth at Hird Equine clinic, Shelf, to surgically remove OCD lesions. (apparently this has hopefully potentially prevented future damage.).
As she is very excitable, we had her backed in June 2022 (by the wonderful Guy Robertson Horsemanship) needing to balance keeping her brain occupied without putting too much strain on her immature body. Once she had a job (albeit a gentle one) she was much calmer in the field!

BRIEF DRESSAGE HISTORY:
I had only ever competed at unaffiliated Novice dressage before Raine.
She was far from an easy ride and Raine quickly earnt the nickname locally "The naughty Black Horse", eventually growing up and becoming an absolute pleasure to compete.
We have been very fortunate to represented the Northern Region Dressage team at both inter regional and Home International competitions at Novice, Elementary and Medium levels.
We have also done Prelim, Novice and Elementary Regional dressage competitions and Novice, Elementary, Medium and Advanced Medium Petplan Area Festivals.

We qualified for the Medium Bronze Championships at Hartpury in 2018 and would love to do the same again one day.