Horse Details

Bobby has been with us for 3 years (since December 2022). I bought him for my 13 year old daughter as her first horse to have at home, having ridden at riding schools since she was 6.  It was a tough learning curve for my daughter as Bobby was not really suitable for a novice rider as her first horse but with lots of lessons and varied workload she actually did really well and rode him for 2 years until she outgrew him and now I ride him. During our ownership he has done loads of hacking, PC rallies, a PC camp, unaffiliated show jumping and dressage lessons.

He shows great potential for dressage, is responsive to the aids and can work in a lovely outline.  He also enjoys his show jumping and has previously been successful at 70 /80cm but can put in the occasional buck after a jump, this is mainly excitement / exuberance, with the right rider to work with this could be minimised.  Since being outgrown by my daughter I have been riding him and I don’t jump which is about a year.

He would suit an experienced and confident older teenager or adult (I am 11.4 stone and he carries me fine) for all activities but with a focus on dressage / hacking.  He is not suitable for a novice or nervous rider as he does take confidence from his rider and is an intelligent horse who will take the mick if not given consistent education by a competent rider.  He can buck and will occasionally nap if he is unsure of a situation but can be easily ridden through these behaviours by a confident rider.  I regularly hack him on my own but we do tend to stick to a route he is familiar with, he will take time to adjust to a new environment and different routes, if hacking alone we found someone walking with him until he got to know the route helped.

Bobby is great in hand, being groomed, shod, on the yard, can live on fresh air and is happiest being kept outside with access to shelter (he hasn’t been shut in a stable with us but was fine at camp with other horses next to him), he hasn’t had a sick/lame day since he arrived 3 years ago.

Loading/travelling is not his favourite activity, we’ve worked with him to improve this and now he has to be travelled without a partition in a trailer, to give him space to balance, we ‘practice’ load in between travelling, where he gets a handful of nuts in the trailer after each load, and then walked round and loaded again a few times being fed each time. We use a dually head collar to load. He may be ok if he was loaded into a 2 horse lorry with another pony already in, as he was in his previous home, but I haven’t done this so can’t be sure.

I am 5’11 so Bobby is too small for me height wise (having been bought for my daughter), although he carries me fine, I am riding 2 horses and with working full time I can’t give Bobby the one to one focus I think he needs to reach his potential.

I really care about Bobby and want him to find the right home, where he can stay for the rest of his life.