Wizz Leyland is one of just a handful of riders contesting this week’s Blenheim Horse Trials who combines a job outside of horses with competing at four-star level.
She rides her own 15-year-old grey gelding, Cruise The Town – Boris, as he is known at home.
“I worked full-time with horses for [event rider] Angus Smales as soon as I left school and I thought ‘right, I’m going to make a go of this’, but as I got further into that, I realised there’s not a lot of money in it,” explains Wizz, 31. “So I had a change of plan, went home to Northumberland and picked up a job for Bedmax in 2021 as the head office is three miles away.”
Wizz started off as a lorry driver for the bedding company.
“I have my HGV and they had a lorry and so I started driving that for them, delivering bedding two or three days a week – I started early in the morning, which meant I could ride in the afternoon,” she says. “It was great fun and I loved it then after a year, they conned me into working in the office.
“I started out combining working in the office and lorry driving and now I’m full-time in the office as operations manager and I love it. I’m very grateful to Bedmax for allowing me to combine riding with work.”
Wizz states that the two horses she competes – she has a two-star horse, as well as Boris – have to possess easy natures in order for her to combine working with riding.
“They’re very good at understanding head torches when there’s so few daylight hours in the winter,” she laughs.
Boris found his way to Wizz while she was working for Angus.
“I’ve had him since he was seven and I’ve done everything with him. Angus bought him from Ireland and so he was on the yard while I was working there. I started riding him and fell in love with him – he is very special.”
The pair scored a career highlight when finishing second in the CCI4*-L at Ballindenisk in 2021, but it hasn’t been entirely plain sailing for them.
“We’ve made lots of mistakes together and he had an injury in 2022 – he picked up a cut while jumping around the cross-country at Bramham and it ended up requiring a joint flush on the operating table the following morning. While building him back up from that, he picked up another small tendon injury, which put him out for a year.
“We gave him plenty of time to recover and I walked him for miles in hand, like a big dog. He owes me nothing, but he’s getting better with age and he’s still low mileage.”
Of Boris’ character, Wizz chuckles when she describes him as “weird”.
“He needs to know who you are – he’s not good with strangers and men, in particular.”
Wizz says she would love to complete at Blenheim this week.
“I really want to gain my MER [minimum eligibility requirement] for five-star as I would love to be in a position to enter one and to be able to say I got him there.”
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