Awards and smiles from Louisa! The Pro-Equine team are so proud of our brand ambassador Louisa Spencer Smith who is already forming a lovely partnership with her new ride Elmo. Louisa, a full-time pharmacy technician for the NHS, lost her horse-of-a-lifetime Arnie in February 2021 but has shown great resilience and determination to bring on her new ride, Elmo. Louisa takes up the story:
“I have been determined to make 2022 a better year so I set my sights on the BD Winter Regional Championships. Elmo and I had qualified for the Medium and Medium Freestyle to Music Gold classes. Being a gold rider is quite a challenge when you have all the professional riders, including an Olympic champion, in your section! Elmo and I haven’t had many competitions this year due to the weather, my holiday and then me getting Covid! But off to the Regionals we went, to have the experience and aiming for some good scores. To my surprise we held our own and Elmo was a total star! We were first to go in the music and, despite a 7% discrepancy between the judges at C and M, we still managed a respectable 68.5% coming 6th, just half a mark from qualifying for the nationals! We then went into our medium 75 and I was delighted to score 66.3% to come 11th in a huge class.
Elmo is the funniest horse and the yard clown, he makes me smile every day. We may not be off to the nationals but he is working so well at home. We are now learning how to do tempi changes and canter pirouettes with the aim of doing an advanced test and maybe consider a PSG!”
Louisa also attended the BD South and West Spring Ball recently and deservedly won the Senior Rider Achievement Award in recognition of all she and Arnie achieved as well as how well she and Elmo are already doing. Louisa also presented the new “Armstrong Award” in memory of Arnie to recognise an amateur rider who works a non-horsey job and has taken their own horse all the way up the dressage levels. The inscription on the trophy reads: “Always believe in your dreams as anything is possible.”
