Grace Webb…. Horse Power!

Lad is my main competitive pony at this time, but he definitely didn’t start that way. From the moment I saw his ad on Trade Me, I completely fell in love with him and I knew that he was the pony I wanted. Mum thought otherwise and tried everything in her power to try to convince me not to buy Lad but once I set my mind on something! it is very hard to convince me otherwise. So reluctantly Mum finally agreed to go try him and we ended up bringing him home for a two week trail, where he was a little star and the whole family loved his unique personality, he even swept Dad off his feet by cuddling him, licking his face and grabbing his shirt whenever he tried to leave. The 10th of July 2016 is when we finally bought him and I was so excited to finally be able to have him as my very own. Ironically almost immediately after his trail and once we had finally paid for him the good behaviour started to drastically plummet and before we knew it we had a not so amazing pony sitting in our paddock. It ended up being so bad that we had someone come up to look at him and we were advised that he was too dangerous to ride and he was honestly almost impossible to handle. At this point Mum was cursing me and my decisions to buy him, but I was still convinced that there was more to him. We eventually got a lady called Sorella Demeulemeester who came up and started to school Lad, at the beginning she was unsure if she would even be able to do anything with him, we had completely lost hope at this point and Mum was giving me the whole “I told you so” speech. After a few schooling sessions and some supplements everyone started to notice a huge difference in his behaviour and attitude. After 7 months I was able to get back on him and start to ride him again and I was so glad to be able to get back on him. From there it’s been a long journey full of ups and downs but he has definitely exceeded everyone’s expectations especially after seeing him four years ago when we first got him. Lad has taken me from jumping me around 70 and 80cm’s to us finishing last season doing our first few rounds of 1.20m and competing most of the season in the pony mini prix’s, I knew from the moment I saw him he had some kind of potential and just needed some faith and now he is one of the safest and honest ponies around.