Horse Of The Week - Rupert.

This is Rupert, our new Horse Of The Week. He is a 7-year-old, Shire cross, standing at 15.2hh. Lynda Tarpey has owned Rupert for 18 months and together the combination do lots of hacking out. They also school on the flat, and are working towards their first dressage test. Rupert has won several 1^st place rosettes for intro and for prelim level dressage, with Lydna’s daughter who trained him. Lynda explains: “We know Rupert’s history from the last three years, but prior to that we believe that he had a bad start in life. Our dentist says that his tongue has, at some point, been almost severed due to a driving accident or the use of a wire bit. He arrived at a friend’s riding school very head shy and very anxious. Although they had helped him a great deal, and he was apparently a lot less anxious when I bought him than when they did, they concluded that he needed a private home as he couldn’t cope with beginner riders. He was mainly being used to lead hacks and needed bringing on in his schooling as he couldn’t go in a straight line, and was extremely spooky in any school.” “A couple of months after getting Rupert, I decided to put him on to Steady-Up Advance because I have had good results with this supplement on past horses. It was not really to make him more manageable under the saddle but because he seemed just terrified of everything and I thought if he could just calm down a bit, he may realise that life is not so scary, and regain some confidence. Rupert was on Steady-Up Advance for about 9 months during which he became much calmer and his big unseating spooks lessened. He was still a little spooky but was beginning to listen and learn rather than being stuck in panic mode. I then thought it seemed silly having this stamp of horse on a calmer as I had bought him to be a sensible ride as I grew older, so I took him off of the supplement.” “I realised after about 2 months, and falls on two consecutive weekends from big unseating spooks, that perhaps I had made the wrong decision. I put him back on Steady-Up Advance and after another 2 months I have back a horse who, though still a working progress, is back to being a generally nice manageable horse. That same type of horse that gave me the confidence to think that he didn’t need a calmer. I think that Rupert and Steady-Up Advance is a long term relationship!” A FREE tub of Steady-Up Advance is on its way to Rupert for being our Horse Of The Week! Each week, the Feedmark team select a horse of the week from reviews, letters and emails sent to them. If you would like your horse to feature, then please send your horse’s details in to [email protected] or go online and write a review.