Philesia (Pumpkin)

Just a brief history of Pumpkins early days.Homebred purebred Arab mare.Very wide not very high!She was lunged long reined and backed in 2005 at 3years-then turned away.In 2006 she was hacked about.This is when I first noticed some problems.One of her shoulders was much larger than the other, this resulted in her being very crooked.Her back was very flat- a wide saddle was a must.This also was very straight cut to avoid the shoulders.However trying to ride on a circle was well "riding a greased pig in a rodeo would have been easier!!"

For myself I have spent a great deal of my riding life Arab racing and endurance riding.Any riding standard that I may have once had has been lost along the way! I did realise that we needed help-big time!

Pumpkin and I arrived at Gainfield on a wet and windy day in January 2007 to have our first lesson inside their lovely indoor school.Not knowing Debbie I was worried that she would think we were frightful and not worth her time.What a sight we were an orange whirlwind flying round the arena with a jockey who looked like a sub standard trick rider trying to stay in the saddle that moved independently of the horse!Any normal person would have taken the money and told us not to bother coming back!

Debbie is not normal. She has bags of patience and understanding and quickly found our strengths and weaknesses and got to work on them.The early lessons were spent just trying to calm Pumpkin and slow her down.When this was achieved Debbie spent time working on her crooked position and straightening her out.I think we will always have problems here because of her physical mismatched body shape.We then had to stop lessons in 2007 as other of life`s problems took over.

Lessons started again in Jan 2008 and I was glad that we had not forgotten too much of what we had learned the previous year.Balance and Pumpkin is the big issue-or lack of it ! Debbie had to get me to understand that before you could get the correct bend Pumpkin had to work in an upright position in balance!

To cut to the chase I ended up doing something I thought I would never do with an Arab horse- a dressage competition.In fact we did all but one of the Gainfield Summer Series of competitions.I really enjoyed them even when we did make a mess of one-You just cant wait to get and have another go!

Pumpkin is still an ongoing project but she is so much better for the schooling and is a pleasure to ride (most of the time!). When I`m out and about doing the endurance rides I have been told she is a credit to me! I would like to think that we were a credit to Debbie!

It seems like and it is hard work but well worth it when you get some results you thought you would never achieve.

I do feel though that we may well struggle to be ready in time for the 2012 Olympics!!!

Alison Hinchliffe- Philesia