We were winners at the Royal Windsor Horse Show!

Whether it’s dressage, showjumping, or cross country, as a team we throw ourselves into every competition with gusto.

Each year the Royal Windsor Horse Show includes a special Riding for the Disabled Association class, and one team comes away with the prestigious trophy. We get to compete with an amazing backdrop of Windsor Castle, alongside some of the world’s top riders in their respective classes. It’s a special day out and a privilege to take part.

Freddie riding Princess

The RDA class was fancy dress, the theme was ‘countries’, and we chose The Netherlands because we wanted to get noticed by being really colourful! It was judged by Dr Who’s Alex Kingston who seemed to be enjoying herself every bit as much as we were.

This is a huge day out for our ponies as well as our humans, fraught with the potential hazards of noise, crowds, strange things in all the wrong places, and different horses. Natalie said: “RDA ponies are thoroughly trained to be calm in all situations, but even so, this was potentially overwhelming for them. When we arrived we rode them up to the main arena and just let them stand and absorb it all for a while. And when it came to their turn to perform, they were perfect.”

We were certainly colourful, from the edam cheeses and the windmills (check out Lexy in the photos!), to hatfulls of tulips and the clogs worn by ponies Princess and Jack. Can you spot the two Van Gogh paintings too? And we were declared winners, narrowly beating our friends over at Horsley, Bookham and Leatherhead RDA into second place. “We think what won it for them was the ponies wearing clogs!” said an HB&L spokesperson.