It's me...
For those of you that don't already know me, my name is Eloise and I'm an 18 year old horse rider from Cornwall. I currently own one horse, my dumb dun Razzamatazz: Tazz for short. Here's a little bit about our story so far:-
Taking you back to the year 2004 now. This was the year my mum lost her first horse Benson, and while searching for her new best friend, none compared to him. Taking the advice of her best friend however, she decided to buy a foal instead, something she couldn't compare to Benson. Now at the time, she was looking for a palomino or coloured foal ONLY and in Cornwall ONLY. Next thing you know she buys a pathetic little dun foal from Devon... purely out of sympathy as he was the biggest, most pathetic looking foal you've ever seen. He was extremely gangly, skinny and looking back now he was pretty ugly too! Little did I know back then, when I was only 6 years old, that he would be the most incredible horse I'd ever meet.
Skipping ahead a few years to 2011, we moved to our new yard closer to home where I could ride out with my friends and compete more with my pony at the time, Molly. At this point, I had ridden Tazz out on a few hacks previously at our old yard but I did all my lessons and competing on Molly. However, as I got older and grew taller, I soon realised I was getting too big for my little 14.1hh speed machine, so I decided to start having lessons and competing on Tazz... which is where our journey really began.
Now, at the point you might be wondering why I call Tazz "the dumb dun"... and well, this next paragraph will explain that for you. This horse was a nightmare. Every lesson he would nap to the gate, spin, buck going into canter, rear, leap... everything you can think of, he did, and sometimes all at once! He certainly taught me how to sit a buck, but I would just laugh it off and call him stupid because ultimately, he was extremely thick! I always used to joke that whatever brain cells he had in there used to go on holiday, and most of the time no one was home.
2 years of this behaviour continued until one sunny afternoons training in July 2013 lead to the worst fall I've ever had. After landing a jump, Tazz kicked out with his back legs and went into a huge bucking fit, causing his back legs to slip out from underneath him and my leg crushed too. I was taken to hospital and the initial x-rays showed no breaks, just soft tissue damage... however a week of no improvement, I was referred for a CT scan where it revealed the main ligament in my foot had detached and I had in fact broken 4 out of 5 of my metatarsal bones. 3 days in hospital and a 4 hour operation later, I was recovering well.
However, as many of you equestrians will know, after a fall our confidence takes a beating. For some this only lasts a day or two, maybe even a week or two... but for me, it lasted 2 years. Every time I tried to ride him, I'd get flash backs of the fall and have a full blown panic attack. I didn't know what was happening to me, but I couldn't go on like this anymore. Doctors tried to help me with my anxiety, giving me exercises to calm myself down if I felt a panic attack coming on. I also watched YouTube videos of other horse riders and how they dealt with bad falls and experiences etc, and it helped me realise I could get back on.
June 2015, almost 2 years later, I finally got back on and have never looked back since. Throughout 2015/2016 Tazz and I had been training super well at home, and finally getting back out there competing. Our first show of 2016 we won both our in-hand classes; our first jumping show back we won our class with a double clear and very quick jump off time; in June we did our first ever ridden showing show and even managed to win a class. Since then, we've been progressing further and generally just having fun with what we are doing, and although we still have rough patches at times, I cherish how far we've come.
Thank-you for reading.
Eloise & Tazz - 'The Dumb Dun'.
