It's been a busy one for Rising Star, Ella Bubb!

Easter Fun!

Finally the long anticipated Easter holidays arrived with the amazing news that I had won the Equilibrium Rising Stars competition! I was over the moon to have received such a great opportunity from an amazing company. It was a great way to start a very busy Easter holiday!

We started with a weekend of showjumping, with Kizzy going to her first ever show on the Saturday. I was very pleased with how she went and she was very grown up. She had a baby pole in the 70cm and jumped a lovely double clear in the 75cm to come 8th, proving just how much she has improved over the past few weeks.
On Sunday I took Sky to the NSEA showjumping qualifier. He was super jumping two lovely rounds to finish 2nd as a team in the 1m qualifying for the NSEA championships in October. We also finished 3rd individually in the 1.10m.

We had a day at home to recover from the weekend before heading off to Twesledown for the South East U18 BE camp. I took both ponies and they were both brilliantly behaved. We learnt lots and had some great lessons from the U18 trainers. Kizzy improved hugely over the two days and Sky benefited hugely from some fine tuning before South of England at the weekend.

Next stop was the NSEA arena eventing qualifier which Kizzy went to. We jumped the 70cm and the 80cm, finishing 3rd as a team in the 80cm. She jumped two double clears round easily the most technical courses she had ever seen and was showing off everything she learnt at camp!

We then were off to South of Horse Trials with Sky to compete in the ONU18. He was super, pulling off a personal best dressage score of 31, just having one pole round a huge show jumping course then storming round the cross country to finish clear inside the time. We finished 6th in a very competitive section which I was over the moon with.

We then had a quieter week, taking Kizzy cross country schooling on the Friday, where she was amazing, jumping everything I asked of her. On Saturday we then had a very early start to take Sky to a Pony Club Pathway talent assessment day. We had two great lessons, getting lots of tips as well as some lovely comments from the trainers. The results as to whether I have been selected for the national camp come out this week so fingers crossed!

The next weekend we traveled up to Bury Farm for the NSEA county showjumping championships. There were two very technical, challenging tracks but Sky jumped amazingly and our team finished 8th nationally!

It was then back to school which was a bit of a shock after the holidays, however luckily I had Chilham Castle Horse Trials to look forward to at the weekend. We took Kizzy on Saturday to do the BE80(T). It was her first ever event and she was amazingly behaved. She learnt lots and it is very exciting for the future. We took Sky on the Sunday to do the ONU18. He did a lovely, but very harshly marked test to score 39, we had one pole in the show jumping which I was very pleased with as there was only one clear in our section! He then gave me an amazing feeling round the biggest cross country course I had ever jumped to gain just 0.4 of a time penalty. This meant we finished 5th which meant we have finished in the top 6 in 3 out of 4 runs so far this year!

Last weekend we took both ponies to the NSEA dressage qualifier. Kizzy did a lovely test in the Prelim to score 65% and Sky was amazing coming 7th in the novice and 3rd in our 1st elementary!

I am very grateful for Equilibrium’s support and I have received some great quality products that are very quickly become part of our daily routine. It was also great to talk to the editor of Horse magazine ahead of the article that they are doing on the Rising Star Competition. It was my first ever interview and a great experience if a little nerve wracking!

It’s now full steam ahead to Aston le Walls this weekend with Sky. The season has started amazingly and I hope, with the support of everyone around me it continues this way!