( READER STORY ) The Journey of B
Borough Road my ROR hidden s
y ROR hidden superstar By Lauren Gratrix I
n November 2014 three days before my 17th birthday in tragic circumstances I lost my first pony from a heart attack. I was completely
devastated, and due to horses always being an escape from all of life’s issues, I found this sudden loss very difficult to deal with. At the time my parents could not afford to buy
me another due to Christmas being just around the corner. So, we agreed we would wait until the next summer when we could save money and I could finish my GCSE’s. However, this proved harder than expected and after getting over the initial heartbreak I really started to miss my escape and started to spend as many evenings as I could at my previous livery yard, helping and riding other people’s horses. While doing this another livery noticed how much I was longing for another horse and happened to spot an advertisement from a friend of hers for a 5-year-old, 16.2hh, Thoroughbred gelding named Borough Road, also known as Jack or more commonly “Beans”. I was told that Beans who had previously been in training as a flat racer, had been in training three times, however each time made an excuse to come out of training and never raced. This was mainly due to an injury that nearly killed him, not starting and ultimately having the decision made in January 2015 that he had the engine but, just not the heart, and was brought out of racing for good.
I was tagged in his post and after persistent pestering, my parents gave in, and by the power of Facebook we arranged to view him. As soon as we met I completely fell in love and he was delivered home to me a week later. The next two years after he arrived weren’t as easy as I expected. I nearly gave up numerous times as he had some issues with his back legs due to his previous injury, and we began to be plagued by lameness and abscesses, which halted our retraining. He was also extremely food aggressive, could not be hot shod or clipped and would not tolerate physios, dentists and such alike. However, I was totally in love with his personality, thus I spent most of these two years on groundwork, hacking and gaining his trust, and although we had some setbacks including nearly being hit by a car and Beans galloping 2 miles to home on his own which created a fear of hacking, our persistence has ultimately paid off with the help of a very special livery yard owner Charlotte, and knowledgeable friends who helped us through, Four and a half years later he now has none of the previous issues and is great to hack once again!
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JULY/AUGUST 2019
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