Hannah Esberger-Shepherd

Update on Vanita's Auction Challenge and CoCo the foal is rushed to the vets!

It has been a bit of a roller coaster few weeks!

Vanita went to the Auction Challenge at Addington in mid-November. He was very spooky for his first ride, he did try to be brave but the tension cost us marks and his first test got 8.4. I was disappointed for him and his owners as I wanted them to really see his potential. Then, as I was going into the "5 minute" box for the music, my brother rang to say he and his wife had just had a baby girl - Kitty May (9lb 2oz)! I think the whole arena got to hear the news! I don't know if that helped Vanita because we then went in to do the music class and he was fab! The judges commended him (and my freestyle test - which is always nice) and gave him a score of 9 which put him 6th. His owners were thrilled and so was I. We then went onto the evening auction and I had picked a lovely mare for my young rider and thankfully we managed to buy her. She is so loose and looks to be very sane so fingers crossed for that combination!

We then headed for home, only to get another call saying that CoCo our foal had pushed both his back legs through the gate - the cut on one leg was awful! It was quite traumatic - we had to rig up a generator and lights for the vet as the lights where he was had stopped working. It was too bad to do there and then so we had to take him to the surgery - it took four of us to get him onto the box. He has had his operation and things look like he will be ok, but he has a huge bandage on and it is going to be a bit of a fight having to change that daily! Horses!

On a more cheerful note, I competed Odwig last week in a PSG at Solihull, which he dully won with 69.1%. That horse always puts a smile on my face!

Hannah