A cob who arrived at his owners’ hugely overweight and having not been ridden for years has shed 150kg to win an affiliated event and qualify for the regional championships.
Scooby Doo, owned by mother and daughter Mandy and Emma Morris, finished on his dressage score of 25.8 to win the BE80(T) at Cooke Coachbuilders Stafford Horse Trials on 3 June. This was his and Emma’s sixth top-10 placing from their seven British Eventing starts, which also include three second-place finishes.
Mandy told H&H she bought Scooby as a 14-year-old just over two years ago as she had lost her older horse Fred.
“I always said Fred was my heart horse – I’d had him for 23 years – and never thought I’d find one I loved as much,” Mandy said. “Then I met Scooby.”
Mandy had a horse to try from a dealer but felt he was not the right one, so he went back. Then she heard Scooby was for sale.
“I went to see him and I just knew,” she said. “He’d done virtually nothing, and hadn’t been ridden for a few years, and he was ridiculously overweight; he’s 15.3hh and he weighed well over 600kg.”
After Scooby’s arrival in the November, he was strictly managed; muzzled on the yard’s good winter grazing, his hay restricted, and fed in a “very, very small-holed haynet”.
“Fred had had EMS [equine metabolic syndrome] and we’d got him through that but I was very aware Scoobes could go the same way, so I was very strict,” Mandy said.
“My daughter’s a coach and knows how to bring them back into work properly so it was just a case of less in and more exercise.”
Mandy checked Scooby’s weight at the same time every week, and the pounds started to drop off. He is now carefully managed, she said, so although the yard he is kept on has good grazing, she will allow the horses who need that, such as Emma’s former racehorse, to go on it first and eat the grass down.
“I weigh his hay and measure all his food,” she added. “Handfuls can get bigger and bigger, and he only gets treats when he’s been worked. If we want him to run across country, and get within the time, he can’t be fat. You can’t expect athletes to be fat, and I want him to have a long and happy life.”
In the early days, Scooby “couldn’t canter; he was like a rocking horse on the spot”, and his first few jumps were “like a stag”, Mandy said.
“Then he learned it was fun, and started really enjoying it. Speed isn’t his thing; he can jump 1m, but on a cross-country course, for that distance, he wouldn’t get the time. He does at 80 and he enjoys it, and it’s better for him to do a lower level and have a lovely time than push him. He’s got to have fun too, so we won’t go over 80.”
Mandy competes Scooby in British Dressage, including at the Area Festivals and associated championships at novice level, and they contended the Trailblazers final last year. She has also arranged her music for freestyle classes, including the Scooby Doo cartoon theme.
“At Trailblazers, we did a lap of honour to the Horse of the Year Show music, which to me was like being at the Olympics,” she said. “He scored about 65% at the associated championships, which is amazing for a horse like him, and now he’s qualified twice for the eventing regionals with Emma. That means he’s got two chances to qualify for the final at Bramham; we never dreamed that this scrubby little cob, who was for me to hack on and maybe do an intro [dressage test], would turn out to be a prince.”
Mandy said Scooby, who is always ridden in a snaffle and plain noseband with no martingale, and unshod behind, is a horse who attracts attention whenever he is out and about.
“Everyone loves him; he’s one of those everyone stops to compliment you on, and on his lovely moustache! I’m not going to hog him; he is what he is, with his long shaggy mane.”
Scooby and Emma came second at Shelford Manor on 28 May, and Mandy said they ummed and ahhed about whether to take him to Stafford the next week. Because it was the last running of the horse trials, owing to the HS2 rail line, they went in support, aiming to take it steady.
“We thought we’d go slowly but no, he wasn’t having that!” Mandy said. “There was no expectation, we just wanted to support their last event, then he went and won it.
“He’s a family horse; Emma and I are both the owners on his passport, and he’s loved by everyone – but mostly by us. His name’s Scooby Doo, so he’s got to be brilliant, hasn’t he?”
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