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My Boy Schon
What can I say love him as much as I love my husband, maybe more...
I will never forget
how I felt that evening waiting for Eric Gillie (www.ericgillie.co.uk) to arrive,
I was so excited I could have burst. I had never seen Schon and this was to be our
first meeting. I had only seen video footage and photographs as I had friends in
Germany view him on my behalf.
He was picked up from his home in Germany by John
Parker International (www.johnparkerinternational.com) and arrived at Carriden Stud
in Aberdeenshire eight days later.
He was beautiful and very full of himself, looking
so much like his famous Dam Sire, Anglo-
Little did I know that this beautiful 4 year
old, chestnut gelding with a number but no name would become so much more than a
project to sell on, but become my boy Schon...
Giving him a fitting name was my first
concern, as I could not continue calling him number 42.
As he is a Hanoverian his
name has to begin with P as his sires name began with P as did his Grand Sire and
so on. I decided to name him after his famous Grand Sire, Westphalian 'Pilot' (www.greenacres-
I started backing him
in October and he never put a foot wrong taking everything in his stride and absorbing
everything i taught him like a sponge. He was so easy that I thought he must of been
started in Germany but i found out he had only been bitted and loose jumped. Within
two weeks he had a good walk, trot and canter. His canter was and still is amazing,
the kind you want to do all day, never breaking out of his lovely rhythm.
He excelled on the flat but I did not see his true potential until I started jumping
him. He was so confident at times a little too much as he would argue with me as
he thought he knew better. This is the only down side to loose jumping. They are
trained to jump big fences placing themselves, it is then hard for the horse to listen
to a rider who is trying to place them.
We started competing and quickly moved up
through the height classes until we were consistently getting double clears round
1m tracks. I along with my trainer agreed he was destined to a career in show jumping
as now only five and jumping with the confidence and precision of an old pro.
I spent
alot of time thinking about Schons future and what to do next as he was a project
and was always meant to be sold. I could not bring myself to sell him as by now I
was head over heels. We had such a friendship, selling him would break my heart.
I wanted be able to have a say in his future.
I decided to send him to a professional
and a new life in Belgium. On route he was spotted by Douglas Duffin's owner Jackie
Kemp who really liked my boy and his breeding and asked if I would allow Douglas
to ride him instead. I of course said yes and after a very long round trip he came
home with them to Fife.
This was much better as I went to see him as ofter as I could. Watching Douglas ride
my horse filled me with so much pride. He was now jumping Newcomers with ease. My
only concern was that I thought my boy was home sick and maybe not ready for the
life of a horse in a professional yard. It is so different from the one to one stress
free life he had with me. With this in mind I made the difficult decision to bring
him home.
He is now a happy, spoiled boy back with me at Walkerhill and I have decided
to ride and enjoy him myself. We are competing regularly at BSJA and i can not wait
to see what the feature holds for us
