why attending to know them is so necessary

How properly have you learnt your horses’ personalities? In relation to horse administration recommendation, there’s few folks extra educated than Alan Davies, long-time groom to Carl Hester and Charlotte Dujardin, and he places lots of emphasis on studying about horses’ personalities, and attending to know their particular person character traits.

“It’s been a extremely necessary a part of my job, to get to know each particular person horse inside out and study their traits,” explains Alan, who just lately introduced his plans to step again from his full-time function.

“It’s a big a part of horse administration and it means you possibly can inform in the event that they’re on type, or not fairly themselves, or if one thing is mistaken.

“I’ve at all times made certain I’m the one who mucks out the competitors horses who I take away to reveals, as I feel it’s a extremely good alternative to spend time with them. You possibly can actually watch them, and get to know their quirks and facial expressions,” provides Alan, on episode 41 of The Horse & Hound Podcast.

“I like to look at them within the discipline too, from a distance. It’s fascinating, and endlessly entertaining too.”

So what are among the particular person traits of the highest dressage horses Alan has cared for over time working with Carl and Charlotte?

“Valegro, aka Blueberry, is a big character however he at all times favored his personal area. Each on occasion he simply wished to go to his steady, dunk his hay in his water, make a large number and be a horse,” says Alan. “I used to need to make it possible for he obtained that point on his personal after we went away. He liked the crowds, the performing, the eye, however I needed to let him have area to muck about in his steady and simply do his personal factor.”

Mount St John Freestyle, the mare who adopted Valegro as Charlotte Dujardin’s subsequent high grand prix horse, was very completely different, in accordance with Alan.

“Freestyle is that this feisty woman who’s at all times busy and nosy and into everybody else’s enterprise,” he laughs. “She liked consideration and she or he’d put her personal headcollar and tack on if she might.”

On his a few years travelling with high horses all over the world, Alan has had the prospect to see how sure horses’ personalities and character traits are handed down by traces. He defined that Charlotte’s Tokyo Olympics double medallist Gio (Pumpkin), who was offered to the Pidgley household in 2021, shared a sure behavior along with his sire, the late stallion Apache.

“Pumpkin was at all times quiet in his steady, however within the cross ties he would paw on the floor and stamp his ft if he thought he wasn’t getting sufficient consideration, and might be a bit bratty,” recollects Alan. “His dad Apache was on the aircraft with us to the World Equestrian Video games in Tryon in 2018, and I seen that he pawed and banged his ft in precisely the identical method his son does.”

Carl Hester’s high horse, his Olympic and European medallist En Vogue, has a really completely different persona once more.

“Vogue is sort of shy, and when he is available in from the sphere within the morning, he likes to go straight into his steady with none fuss or hassle,” reveals Alan. “His steady is within the courtyard with out an enormous quantity of visitors going previous, which fits him. He likes to have his breakfast, then have some peace and quiet and a sleep. While you go in to get him able to experience, you’ll at all times discover him in the back of the steady, or on the facet, not on the door,”

What are your horse’s distinctive traits and persona traits, and the way do you recognise them? Tell us at [email protected]

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