Another good day for Faye and Rocky!

Hello there, and thanks for reading the Shires blog. Guest blogger and Shires sponsored rider Faye Berry has written another installment about her latest horsey outings and successes with Rocky...

Rocky was a star on Sunday afternoon; mum took us up to Hargate Arena in Derbyshire to jump the Sports Horse Classic Blue Riband/Foxhunter class, which was a qualifier for the BSJA Scope Festival. We arrived at the showground at about 2.30pm, thinking we would have time for coffee and some lunch and get jumping. We had more than enough time we didn't jump our first class until 6.40pm as the show was so busy.

Rocky was not easy to warm up to start with, I think she was bored with standing on the lorry and now because she was being asked to work, she didn’t think it was a very good party. There were 40 starters in the Blue Riband, in the ring she was great, jumping clear in the first round along with 8 others, only 6 qualified, and in the jump off she jumped another clear with the fastest time winning the class. The next class we jumped was a 1.25 open class. We were first to go and again Rocky jumped well but I had a shocking stride to the first fence and she had it down. I was pleased with her so I washed her off and put her back on the lorry. On the way out of the showground, I stopped at the ring to see how many people had jumped clear in that class, to find I was being called for a jump off. Only Rocky and the last horse to go in the class and jumped with 4 faults. Mum spoke to the other competitor and they decided we would split the first place, because neither of us wanted to jump off.

Rocky was a star winning two classes and I was so pleased with her. I will let you know how I get on next week at Weston Lawns.


Bye for now Rocky and Faye

Guest blogger- Shires' Sponsored Rider Faye Berry!

Well, I did promise you we'd have other people blogging and to kick this off, Faye Berry, who's one of our sponsored riders, has sent over some news for the Shires blog! Faye lives in Herefordshire and show jumps competitively...she's also been modeling for our new catalogue so look out for her! Anyway, here's her blog entry...

After a quiet winter we went off to the Blue Chip Championship at Hartpury Arena in Gloucestershire. On the Wednesday we had entered a 1.20m class which was held in the main arena. Rocky went well, but struggled down a distance and had a stop. The following morning we returned to Hartpury and jumped the Devoucoux Star Championship class. There were 84 starters in this class and we were drawn fairly early, Rocky was on good form and after chatting with Gary Morgan and Nick Price, my trainers the previous evening, I was feeling a bit more confident.

Rocky went into the ring bucking as normal, so I knew she was going to go well, she jumped a nice clear round, although maybe a little too fast. We then had to rush outside to the outdoor arena to jump the 1.25m class, which was run 2 phase. Rocky jumped well in this and had a clear and 4 faults, which I was very pleased with. Nick Price had arrived at the show by then, and he helped me warm up for the Star jump off. He told me to take some very tight tuns and go for it, as I had nothing to lose. Rocky went into the ring and jumped a great round finishing second – what a result.

The following week Rocky had a bit of a rest, as I was on holiday in Turkey. Mum looked after Rocky and kept her ticking over so that she was ready for our next show. I arrived back from Turkey on a Tuesday morning and went straight to Bromyard Equestrian Centre for some BSJA training with accredited coach David Austin. I found this useful and picked up a few tips from him.

On Thursday we went off to Weston Lawns, where Nick is based and jumped a Foxhunter class and a A,B, and C handicap, she jumped 4 faults in the Foxhunter and clear and 4 faults in the Handicap.
On Sunday off the Weston Lawns again and we jumped the same classes and got the same result. Rocky is going well and has moved up the levels nicely, hopefully she will be ready to jump the Newcomers Second Rounds when they start in June.

Bye for now Rocky and Faye

So much to do before the weekend!`

Well, as our warehouse sale and equestrian event approaches, we are all super busy making sure everything is done, dusted, priced and sorted before the gates open at 10am on Saturday morning! We're all hoping that the weekend will be really successful and that everyone will have a good time. We've got a number of other companies attending like Dengie, Baileys, Classic Showjumps, Redmills, NEW, NAF, Equiami, Equinevolution, Warwickshire College, Veteran Horse Society, Fort Dodge and the Blue Cross...and maybe some others too, and we are putting together a series of talks from a number of experts as well as a free raffle and, of course, the warehouse sale! We are having the sale with three of our local retailers: Barnstormers, Fox Saddlery and Equestrian & Country Leisure and there will be loads of super bargains! So, if you're in our neck of the woods (that's Leominster) we're open both days so do come along!!

As for the talks, well, I really hope I get some time to listen to them. We've got the master from our local hunt coming to do a talk about a year in the life of the hunt which I for one am really looking forward to! Dengie are hoping to bring a lifesize digestive system...and I'm looking forward to that too...now all I need to do is book the weather!

Hello and welcome!!

Welcome to Shires’ very first blog entry! We’re not planning to use this blog just to tell you about all our great new products (although we will keep you informed with the latest product news, reviews, events and anything else that we think you’d find useful!) but we’re also going to get other people to contribute to tell us about what they do with their horses, debate horsey topics and for you, as readers/fans/customers/followers to raise issues that matter to you. I’m hoping we’re going to get some really fab people to blog for us and also receive lots of thoughts and comments from you all. In the meantime, the chances are that I’ll be doing most of the blogging and I’m Rhea Freeman, Shires’ Marketing Manager. I have two horses of my own and a keen interest in horses, equestrian news and products…all of which come in very useful in my job!

Anyway, that’s all for now but there’s plenty to come…so do start reading our blog regularly…I promise to try and make it as interesting as possible for you all.