Supported rider, Daisy Brucki, gives us an insight into her summer, restarting her new 4-year-old KWPN Oakley. He has made great progress from dragging Daisy around and giving her the occasional flying lesson, to cross-country and show jump training away from home.
Reflecting on my summer it’s safe to say things most certainly did not go to plan! My main competition horse Tom sadly had a nasty bout of bad luck with back-to-back injuries. This meant he missed the entirety of the summer season. So, I had to resort to plan B which was focusing primarily on my new gigantic (17’2!!) 4-year-old full KWPN. Oakley arrived with me in May (2023), after a very long 4-day journey from Europe.
He arrived in very poor condition (terrible teeth, poor feet, severely underweight, and with worms). My main mission of the summer soon became giving some serious TLC to this poor boy, and who better to help me with that than Allen & Page and their brilliant team, both in Bristol and Norfolk. We began simply by turning him out in the field, something I’m quite certain he hadn’t experienced much of before. I gradually increased his grazing time before introducing hard feed. We opted for Allen & Page’s Muscle and Focus feed, as Oakley is a very anxious and stressy horse. With the expert advice of A&P’s nutritional team, we decided the highest calorie feed probably wouldn’t work well with his temperament at that stage.
Oakley was weighed and assessed in Bristol by Nigel from A&P in May and came in at 528kg. He was provided with an official feeding plan for the rest of the summer. Fast-forward to June, Oakley returned to Norfolk with me for the summer holidays. He had increased turnout and was being fed 1.5 scoops of Muscle and Focus twice daily. During these 3 months, Oakley had a short holiday in June to chill out in the field and then I brought him back into work just to see how we would get on.
He had been backed before I got him, but how and to what extent I wasn’t sure, so we took things very slowly. We started with lunging and schooling in our arena at home. This proved difficult to begin with as Oakley didn't want to stay in the arena, despite me hanging on for dear life. So, after a few flying lessons and some temporary fencing being replaced, we were away! I was extremely impressed that despite being terrified of life and everything in it, Oakley’s attitude to ridden work was excellent. He took to schooling like a duck to water – showing lots of promise. We then decided to give hacking a go, something I was expecting to end in great failure. However, I was pleasantly surprised, and he was a star – loving every minute (except those very scary puddles!).
After lots more hacking and schooling during July, we decided to give our first trip away from home and jump school a try. We ventured out to our local XC schooling venue with the idea of having a nice hack around the course and popping the odd log if we felt brave enough. I was absolutely over the moon that he jumped an entire course including ditches, steps and even getting in the water! The same success followed when he went show jump schooling. For the second half of August, we went XC schooling some more and had an SJ lesson too, all of which he behaved impeccably and showed serious improvement. To top it all off, he was weighed again in August by A&P and came in at 557kg, a very impressive ~30kg increase since May!
Overall, the difference in Oakley from May to August, both in weight/condition and temperament is monumental!
Back in May, I couldn’t lead him in or turn him out without being dragged or left in the dust as he would just take off. By August, my entire family (including my very small sister) could handle him with no issues. He is so much more relaxed in general life and really seems to be a happy horse – Muscle and Focus is working absolute wonders! Now in Bristol, he will continue his ridden education until his winter holiday to rest and reflect on everything he has learnt.
