2015 was an amazing year for me, it started with pony winter premiers when I qualified two ponies for Hickstead. I also had to say goodbye to my lovely JA pony Wonder Boy who had tried his heart out for me all 2014 when he was sold. Pony of the year show came next where I was highly placed every day in both the children on horses and JC classes winning leading rider, but the highlight was winning the BS 148 special class with one of my favourite ponies Nelly, she has been so special for both me and her owners and she also went on to qualify for the foxhunter final at HOYS.
Then came along my opportunity of a lifetime when I was asked to ride 2 ponies for the Barker family, Wildwood Silver and Ammanvalley Santino (Jack). Silver did really well coming 2nd in both the 1m10 final at Scope and the newcomer final at HOYS. Jack was awesome from the start, I only rode him at 9 shows during which he won a JA HOYS qualifier, won a European trial, won the 1m20 final and 2nd in the JA final at Scope and 2nd in the pony showjumper of the year at HOYS. The icing on the cake however was getting picked to represent Great Britain on the pony showjumping team at the European championships in Malmo Sweden, where he didn't disappoint jumping a double clear helping Great Britain to win team gold! Standing on that podium getting my Gold medal was the best day of my life, it made all the years of hard work so worthwhile.
After HOYS I began to concentrate on horses as 2015 was my last year competing ponies. I was offered the fab opportunity to go down south to ride for Rowland and Ali Fernyhough, Rowland is a former medal winning Olympic showjumper and they produce some amazing horses. I'm really enjoying it and learning loads, along with competing some really nice horses, jumping 1m20 and 1m30 double clears and recently qualifying for the B and C final at Blue Chip.
For the past 6 months I've been very lucky to be sponsored by Aztec Diamond, the team there have been really supportive to both me and my sister and their products have proved to be amazing for us. My favourite is definitely the breeches as they're so comfy and smart and the sticky patches are a god send at times! All the products are very well thought out by people who ride and this becomes even clearer when you ride in them yourself. I'm really looking forward to wearing their products in 2016 and hope to continue to be a good ambassador for them.
My aims for 2016 are to carry on competing, learning and hopefully producing some fab horses who will get some good results.
Massive thanks again to all the team at Aztec Diamond,
Lots of love, Jess xxx
