Making a switch

AT SOME STAGE in their ridden life, every horse does something for the first time. It might be a dressage horse seeing a showjumping course; a pure showjumper tackling his first-ever solid fences; a hacking horse being ridden between the white boards — and everything in between.

For a lot of horses, these new ‘firsts’ come early in their careers while they are still youngsters — but not always. Some of these experiences take place years later, perhaps as a result of time off or being broken in late, or going to a new rider and switching disciplines. Suddenly that brave pure showjumper performing solidly over 1.40m tracks until the age of 10 finds himself in unfamiliar territory and lacking experience compared to other horses half his age, as he’s tasked with going cross-country for the first time.

This was the case for Becky Stones’ Pepper Jack, who arrived at Caroline Harris’s yard last year with plenty of showjumping mileage but little eventing experience — and the latter was to be the 10-year-old’s