One year ago Emma Scott, who is competing in the 90cm class at the H&H Festival of Eventing, run in association with KBIS, might not have believed she would have made it this far with her horse, Lombard Light.
The now 12-year-old thoroughbred “wouldn’t go over a showjump pole” according to Emma, who is 19 and based near Ely.
“He used to get six strides away from it and then would stand bolt upright and not go anywhere near it.”
Emma, who bought the former failed National Hunt racehorse, bred in the purple for the job being by Milan out of a Roselier mare, credits a winter of team chasing and hunting with the Cambridgeshire Drag to the transformation of ‘Bills’.
“He tried to showjump around the first team chase I took him to,” explains Emma, who is on a gap year “playing with ponies” before hopefully going to study graphic design at Leeds University. “But then the penny dropped and he’s now a completely different person — he’s so positive about everything.”
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Emma bought Bills from a friend who had started retraining him out of racing.
“But he developed some back problems and she struggled to find the time he needed, so I bought him from her for £1.”
“I’ve never had a horse so loving on the ground, but he can be an idiot in the warm-up as he just wants to get on with it,” says Emma. “I’m so happy with how he has gone this weekend. I was wondering whether I should keep eventing him, but after how well he has pulled it together for me for this competition, I think I will crack on with it.”
Don’t miss the full report from the H&H Festival of Eventing in Horse & Hound magazine — on sale Thursday, 7 June and follow online at www.horseandhound.co.uk
