He May Yet Be Swapped For A New Camera

The ragwort that has been removed from the fields at the yard are covered in Cinnabar Moth Caterpillars and it’s incredible how well camouflaged they are with their yellow and black stripes.

I have now got as far as I can with China’s life story:

He was bought by a lady called Paula from Lincolnshire as a 5 year old (don’t know where from) but his passport was lost (not sure how) and so she had to get him a new one. To save money she registered him with The Donkey Society and she didn’t include the name of his sire or dam on the passport details...I am not sure why but maybe that it would have cost extra as the details would have needed to be verified with the relevant Studbook.

It seems that Paula runs an equestrian centre and when she re-passported China she added the initials of her business to his name (not really the done thing as she didn’t breed him as far as we know) so that really makes finding any earlier information about him difficult as he had a different (or partly different) name!

She had him for about 2 and a half years and then decided to sell him, so she sent him to John’s yard near Wrexham for him to train, compete and sell him. I can find evidence of him going to one competition before he went to John. John knew who his sire was...a stallion called Uptown.

Uptown is a KWPN Dutch stallion with an amazing pedigree including a grandsire (ie China’s great grandad) who came 5th in dressage at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. We all guessed that China was a European warmblood and we thought maybe Oldenburg, which is a similar breed and we were close as it seems that China’s grandam was from Oldenburg lines. I haven’t been able to trace any information on China’s dam.

China was at John’s for 8 months and John felt he was a natural raw talent but that Paula had let him get away with anything and everything and that she was over-horsed, so he needed the education and routine that John was able to give him. John competed him pretty intensely looking at his BD results and he quickly moved up the levels and qualified for the British Dressage regional finals in the space of 4 months. He was then advertised for sale for £15,000.

They say that something is only worth what somebody is prepared to pay but there was no way I could see that China would be worth that kind of money...and he wasn’t John did find him a buyer that was prepared to pay a substantial £9000. As I have seen on more than one occasion, greed took over and Paula would not accept the offer and the buyers couldn’t afford to increase it, so China got put back on a lorry to Lincolnshire once more.

We are not sure but we think that he spent the next 15 months at Paula’s doing nothing very much as there’s no evidence of him being competed and John said she wasn’t prepared to pay anymore for his training. He may have been used in her riding school.

We don’t know what circumstances led to China being for sale with a dealer for less than half of the original offer just over a year after going back to Paula. We also don’t know whether the substantial loss of weight and condition that led him to be the skinny brown pony that I decided to take a chance on 5 months later (and at a fraction of even the dealers original price) was from his time with Paula or his time at the dealer but I suspect maybe a bit of both.

So there is still the first five years of his life that we don’t know about. I have contact details for Paula but I am not sure I want to contact her. My worry about contacting John was finding out that China was sold because he was no good, not liked or had behavioural issues and so I was so relieved to find that John really liked him, would have bought him for himself had he had the money and he was happy I made contact, but I am not sure Paula will give me a similar response.

I feel I know all I need to know and I now understand why China is the way he is, why he behaves like a spoilt brat at times and why he is tense and apprehensive at others, his inexperience and how to adjust my riding and handling of him accordingly. I feel very positive about our future together and am glad that I have found this rather special horse...although at £9K if he doesn’t behave he may yet be swapped for a new camera and a trip to Costa Rica!