Here goes, my first ever blog post. I'm very new to all this so I should probably just jump in with an introduction! My name is Alex Barsdell, I'm 16 years old and I'm just trying to make something of myself in the horsey world.
It's been apparent to me and those around me since I was very young that I loved horses, on holidays to the countryside my highlight would be when I got to go riding and I was itching to start lessons at the local riding school. The required age to begin lessons was 5, I've always had a stubborn streak in me and being told that I wasn't old enough just made me want to start all the more! As soon as I turned 5 I began lessons and thus began my journey. I stayed at said riding school until the age of 9, when my mum and I decided that it wasn't the sort of place we wanted to be any more, a couple of weeks after we left some friends of ours from the same riding school said they had found another and urged us to go and try it out, and from there things really kicked off! I had lessons there for a few months when the instructor said she knew of a pony that may be suitable for me to share, the offer for share quickly turned into an offer for full loan which was beyond anything I had ever imagined before. Myself, my mum and a couple of friends of ours travelled to see Freddie (more commonly known as Freddie Bear or Froddle) and I instantly fell in love with him. He didn't have a huge amount going for him, he was underweight and had been out of work for some time, he napped at everything and resembled a wooden plank in his movement, but I decided that he was the one for me and a couple of weeks later he came home (after two and a half hours of our yard owner attempting to load him - naughty Froddle!).
Having my own pony proved a lot more challenging both emotionally and physically than I ever considered, for the first while I spent a lot of time on the ground in tears with more bumps and bruises than could be counted but slowly but surely, myself and Freddie gelled as a team and he essentially taught me to ride. I always imagined myself as a showjumper, but Freddie had other ideas and more often than not would stop at fences and rear. I 'hated' dressage (that's what all the other kids said so it must have been awful, right?) but as far as jumping went, we were getting nowhere fast. The time came when the yard we were stabled at held a dressage show, I entered myself and Freddie into the intro and so began my love of dressage! Freddie seemed to enjoy this much more and we grew together in our new discipline, we found ourself a new instructor (the amazing Laura Tester) and worked our way up to novice level, however, by this point I was becoming quite big on Freddie as he was only 13hh and was getting on a bit, so after an amazing 3 years and 1 day, he went off to a friend of his owners for a happy retirement, and he had definitely earned it!
There were many rides that came over the time I had Freddie and just after, one of the most significant being Jasper, a lovely little Connemara x who was one of the more straightforward ones (I was mostly the kid who got put on the...spirited ponies) and under the guidance of Laura we progressed well together, I learned some more advanced dressage and my confidence was sky high. When Jasper was sold, it was time to move onto...HORSES! I managed to get a share on my yard of a lovely ISH and was spotted riding him by someone at the yard who then asked me to exercise her horse while she was away...that's when I came across Dougal. The absolute love of my life. Dougal was a 15.3hh ex-racer, I had never ridden anything like him, but I absolutely fell in love with him. He wasn't the most athletic and definitely wasn't the easiest but we just clicked. Dougal became one of my most regular rides and I eventually took him on full loan, there were times when I hated him (I remember one particular lesson we spent half of it trying to come back from canter) but he taught me patience, empathy and how to work bloody hard! I rode Dougal on and off for a couple of years before loaning him for nearly a year, unfortunately he was diagnosed with severe kissing spine and despite treatment, had to retire.
Myself and my mum decided that we didn't want any more loans or shares as it never worked out and so began our first proper horse hunt (prior to this we had mainly had them fall into our lap)! Just a couple of weeks into our hunt, Laura sent me a link to a 7 year old Welsh D x TB gelding with a tendency to buck, I looked at his ad and didn't think much of it as there had been others that I'd seen that I also liked the look of, but we decided to call the owner and ask some questions. After speaking to her I was pretty convinced that I wanted him, we arranged a viewing and made the journey from England to Wales to see him, he was very nervy and started bunny hopping and jumping around when I tried to get on, we worked through it with some basic desensitising exercises and eventually, I was on board! All he needed was for me to hold his hoof and he tried his heart out trying to understand what I wanted, he was most definitely coming home! 2 weeks later we made the journey again to pick him up. Our first ride at home wasn't exactly the best start as when I put my leg up to do my girth he completely panicked and decked me. Later that week he did so again when asked for canter and also jumped on me during some desensitising. Proving himself to be more of a challenge than originally anticipated, we decided to restart him completely and went back to basic groundwork followed by a couple of weeks of walking under saddle, we built his work up very slowly until he was confidently walking, trotting, cantering and hacking under saddle. I then thought it would be good for Jasper to get used to other riders so asked my VERY experienced friend to have a go, it didn't go exactly to plan...as she was taking her jacket off Jasper displayed some impressive acrobatics sending her plummeting into the school fence...nice one Jasper! He then decided that he was terrified of being ridden again and so the process repeated itself. This wasn't our only setback, almost all of the falls I've had off him have resulted in not being able to ride him for a few weeks as he has reverted back to his old self, however the time of no riding has decreased considerably each time (yes I've said hello to the floor many times) and the last two times I have been able to get straight back on, something I would never have considered not doing before Jasper as in my opinion you either go to the hospital or get back on the horse!
With the horses I've ridden I've always managed to get them to a certain point and then there is a change in circumstance forcing me to give up the ride, I managed to make Jasper my best schooled horse yet (with the help of Tom Pett, freelance dressage instructor https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tom-Pett-Dressage/716391691808640?fref=ts
) popping effortlessly over 1.10 fences and schooling to a level where he would have produced a very good quality novice dressage test (after just 6 months of his life in work as he was only lightly backed when I got him and couldn't be ridden after every time I fell off) and sure enough, BAM soft tissue damage in the foot! As frustrating as this is, it will not be the end of his career and I will be in a much better place to rehabilitate him as after 7 years at my yard in London, I am moving to the rolling hills of Buckinghamshire to become an apprentice with the said, amazing Laura Tester! As you can probably imagine, moving away from home and everything I know at just 16 is a very daunting prospect but I feel that it is too good an opportunity to miss as I have never got on well with school I don't particularly want to sign myself up for two more years in the classroom! So in early September, Jasper and I will be on our way to our new life where he will be brought back into work very slowly (better safe than sorry) and we will be working towards eventing which has always been my dream as well as furthering my knowledge in all areas and hopefully getting to ride some new and interesting horses.
To give you all a visual insight this was the start of mine and Jasper's journey together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd6ALoKpH3I and this was him just before he injured his foot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwhauIiFnwk
If you have youtube I'd really appreciate it if you'd hit the subscribe button, I also have a 'raws' channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6dP31ftn5ECZi4CZZ2KEGA where I will try and upload more frequent videos. I'm also on instagram as alexbarsdellequine and I post most regular updates on there!
If you have read this far then thank you and I hope you will join Jasper and I on our journey to recovery and eventually...EVENTING!! I will try and find interesting things to blog about whether it be a lesson that horses have taught me or what I've been up to! Thank you for reading :)
PS: pictured is Jasper showing off some of his moves!
~Alex&Jasper
