Maddie is a Thoroughbred mare by Golden Heights out of a 3* event mare. She came to me after I fell in love with her in a field at a stud I was visiting to pick up a horse with a friend. At the time it didn't occur to me that it was strange that she was the only horse from that stud destined for the sales! I just knew that I wanted her and one week later she was in the trailer on the way home with me.
After some not very successful attempts to start riding Maddie which included a lot of rearing and some fairly athletic bucking, I was fortunate to come across the Parelli programme through a friend. Maddie went to a Parelli instructor for re-starting and it was only then that I really came to understand how troubled she was and what it would take for me to be the partner she needed.
It soon became clear that I had two choices... 1. to sell Maddie or 2. to keep her as a 'pasture ornament' until I had the skills she needed. I opted for option 2 deciding to develop my skills to Parelli Level 3 with Arielle and leave Maddie until later.
Of course, what actually happened was as soon as I got my Level 3 I went out to the US for two years to train as an instructor. So fast forward to 2007...
By this time Maddie was nine and it had become clear that all those years just doing her own thing, listening to mother nature meant that it was going to take some doing to cause her to listen to me! Even just standing still was quite the adventure! In addition to that she needed a lot of physical help with some very special remedial shoeing from my wonderful farrier Mark Johnson who is quite simply, the best farrier ever!
It was Neil Pye who suggested that I start taking Maddie to demonstrations, he thought that her natural look and elegance would make her a lovely demo horse if we could pull it off... eeek! So in 2008 we did our first demo at Your Horse Live! At this time Maddie was barely Level 2, it was a big ask to have her in front of such a big crowd but she grew in confidence each day which encouraged me that we could make it.
We then did a number of demonstrations in 2009 including the British Open Showjumping Championships and our own Parelli Celebration at the NEC. The NEC was a HUGE ask for her and she did incredibly well considering her first time in the arena was for a spotlight on her own with me and 4,500 people!! She was certainly not rideable that first day but by the second I was able to hop on bareback and do a little bit of something.
2010 was a huge journey in emotional fitness for me, everything had been going well then in spring 2010 Maddie started to have a lot of pain in her back, to the point where she would not allow me to mount. She was given a diagnosis of suspected kissing spine and I was told that it was touch and go whether I would ever be able to ride or play with her again! What followed was six months of intensive treatment by wonderful osteopath Gavin Scofield and, of course, lots of attention from Mark.
In Autumn 2010 I was told to start to play and ride again and see what we had. I postponed my planned trip to the US in favour of concentrating on this and slowly brought Maddie back to fitness. Lots of walking and Linda Parelli's Hill Therapy programme played a big part. Maddie started to get stronger and was able to start to offer more, the light at the end of the tunnel was getting a bit bigger.
Spring 2011 saw us back at the NEC and part of the Savvy Team. Against all the odds Maddie performed brilliantly playing with me online, at liberty and finishing off with some lovely bridle-less riding. I couldn't have been more proud of my girl and everything we have achieved, she is turning into the demo horse Neil obviously realised she could be!
Thank you to everyone who has helped us along the way, to Neil for believing in us and of course to Linda and Pat Parelli without whom I would never had the skills to help a troubled horse like Maddie through it all.
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