From The Horses Mouth: Renvarg Crusader and Cefncerrig Alfie bring home the ribbons


The three musketeer's in line, patiently awaiting the champions to be announced

It was a day of firsts on Sunday the 21st of September, when myself and two of my good friends attended Patrington Mill Show.

Renvarg Crusader's First Show

Show morning arrived, it was half past five and I was sitting at home with a Mocha coffee in hand patiently awaiting the arrival of day light, not being in a hurry to go out in what was turning out to be an exceedingly chilly September morning.

Given that my horses are shown straight from the field with only a field shelter and no electricity I couldn't exactly go bring them in at 5am to re-wash their socks as I had planned so when dawn finally broke over the field we had but an hour to prepare and load both ponies onto the box, baring in mind that Crusader is not the most co-operative loader in the world (probably, in fact, the least!). I had
doubts about what I would find in the field, visions of mud-encrusted, stained, brown, once-white socks darted through my mind, but I was pleasantly surprised to find on arrival at the field that Crusader had in fact managed to stay clean over night and ended up loading onto the box with no grooming at all, as all of the time was spent on trying to clean the mini man, Cefncerrig Alfie up!

Renvarg Crusader

Luckily my good friend Jemma who I have written about in my blog before when she was exercising Ronnie for me during my pregnancy in 2012, had agreed to come along with me for the day! This worked out great as the boys ended up in two classes together and the championship classes!
My other good friend Kim was also showing her traditional cob colt on the day so we managed to park the boxes together and juggle our three boys who were showing and Kim's adorable shetland who was travel companion to Magners, her colt.

The show was Renvarg Crusader's very first show, he is a six year old chestnut Welsh Section D gelding by Synod Replica and out of Renvarg Perriwinkle. I expected him to be over excited but luckily he was a perfect angel, whom in the ring was complimented on his manners by the judge!

Renvarg Crusader taking Third in his first ever class.

To cut a long story short I will skip right along and tell you that Crusader entered four classes and bagged two firsts, a second and a third. The first class we entered was the "warm up class" that all three boys entered and Crusader earned himself a respectable third. It was all upwards from there and he out did himself in the next three classes, winning a second and two firsts, going on to win the mountain and moorland large breeds in hand class and qualifying for Equifest 2015!

Cefncerrig Alfie

The day also happened to be Cefncerrig Alfie's second show, having entered his first show (Epworth Show) the previous month. Cefncerrig Alfie is my four year old buckskin Welsh Section A pony whom I've only owned a year. He was a good boy throughout the day, loading himself in the box (a relief after spending a long time convincing Crusader to load before we could set off for the show!) Alfie bagged a 6th in the first class and moved on to bag himself two seconds and his first ever First place! He came a well received second in the mountain and moorland small breeds class and also qualified himself for Equifest 2015!

Cefncerrig Alfie trying out the showing game

Bromley's Cask of Magner's (my friend's traditional Cob colt) behaved himself so well for a baby colt at only his second show of the year. He bagged himself a fifth place, two thirds and a first! Also qualifying himself for Equifest 2015 (looks like we're going to Equifest next year girls!).

Bromleys Cask of Magner's Winning First place Part Bred

All in all a great day was had by all and the future is looking bright for all of our ponies, hopefully next season my welsh section C Ronnie will be out to play again once his mane has grown back in (damn sweet itch!)