I will start off admitting that I only really came round to the idea of producing this blog because I have recently broken my wrist! I'm currently unable to work(I work with horses),unable to ride my wonderful horse and unable to do quite a few things that I would like to be doing! As resting is on the agenda and I'm thoroughly missing my usual horsey routine,I decided that writing this blog would be the perfect escape from the boredom of being sat on the sofa-however much I wished for it in the depths of a long,bitterly cold winter! So here goes...
Piper does have a section 'about him' but I wanted to keep it short and sweet.As you will soon guess,I rather like talking (and writing!) about him so I thought that my first post could just be a little(or a lot!) about his background. By reading this first you can find out just how much he's changed physically and mentally and how lucky I was to have known him, and his background previously, which helped lay the foundations for our bond and trust we have in each other.
Piper Hayes is a 16.2hh Irish Thoroughbred born on the 1st July 2001. His mother was a pretty poor racehorse, however, he is by Tiraaz, who was owned and bred by the Aga Khan and won Group races in France before going on to produce some good National Hunt progeny,including top class chaser Finian's Rainbow(winner of 3 Grade 1's including the 2012 Queen Mother Champion Chase) and well-known 'northern' dual-purpose horse Tazbar
Piper was 3rd to Imperial Commander(2010 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner amongst other big victories)in his first Irish PTP before going on to break his Maiden tag in his next race.
Piper was soon sold and moved to England,where he was trained in the beautiful county of Gloucestershire and contested in 9 races in total (2 National Hunt Flat races and 5 over hurdles)without any wins but he was always in the first 5 except for his final race at Aintree ,where he was pulled up and found to have Atrial Fibrillation.
Piper was immediately retired and went home to live with his owners on their stud. This is how I came to meet him,aged 16 when I started a weekend job there. I immediately fell in love with him,although he wasn't a particularly stunning horse at the time. He was having the best of care but just didn't have much weight(from the heart condition most probably) and had a pretty sad demeanor. He was my favourite though for the whole 18 months that I worked there and I spent my lunchtimes on a regular basis grooming him and cuddling him-I had great confidence when looking into his blank eyes that there was a real character waiting to come out...
I had always had in my mind that I would like to own him,but I already had my fantastic schoolmaster and Piper was happy enough living out and being a 'nanny' to some of the youngsters. In spite of all that, 18 months after I had left my job at the stud (and 3 years from when I first met him) Piper became mine and travelled from Essex to Wiltshire arriving at about 11.30pm on the 21st July. It was certainly fate...
From the moment I first got on Piper I felt at home.He was rather round and unfit but this meant that we could take things slow and get to know each other again.Nothing phased him;hacking in company,hacking alone,trotting round the school,there were never really any issues,that is,until I started jumping him. He found poles on the ground easy enough and also small cross poles. Out hacking with a friend one day we even popped over a couple of baby hurdles,cue a couple of violent stops from Piper at the beginning.I must admit I was surprised at the time-I expected him to lock on and pull me into it racehorse style but I was forgetting that the poor boy had spent a good three years out of it and obviously lacked confidence.
Just a few weeks later while hacking around the same estate,we decided to pop over an innocuous timber hunt jump. My friends horse stopped the first time,so I turned Piper towards it and squeezed him into canter.His response was quite a shock! 3 large bucks that then led to a sharp jink to the left.You can picture it-him one way,me the other, which resulted in a fracture to my left fibular and 6 weeks of no riding...misery!
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