Eastwood pride as national interest grows in shire horses

“The whole of the Friday afternoon was given to the pure-bred and part-bred Shires,” said Eastwood .

“I hope the society feel it was a worthwhile exercise.

“Certainly the number of entries and the number of people watching what was a quite recently decided set of classes, in a new time slot, proved that there’s a whole new market for the Shire as a riding horse.”

The weekend proved to be a successful one for Eastwood, rider Gail Carmichael and Clover.

In her first class of 11, Clover was placed second to Gairlock Challenger.

Both horses then went through to the championship of both pure- and part-bred ridden Shires in which Challenger was first and Clover second again. The placings were repeated in the dressage class.

“Standing second to Challenger is like a win to us as he’s so consistently good and is winning dressage competitions at quite a high level now,” said Eastwood, who lives at Costello near Wakefield.

Clover then went on to win the dressage to music class.

She added: “This was a nightmare to prepare for but it all came together on the day and Gail and Clover were pulled in first, much to our delight.”

She took over the ride on Clover on the Saturday evening, when they took part in a pageant depicting the Shire horse through history.

Eastwood continued: “We had a wonderful day and the Shire Horse Society pulled out all the stops to produce the best show to date.”

The British Horse Society have expressed their concern that the views of riders are being ignored by DEFRA.

There will be no equine representative on the new Independent Forestry Panel and the BHS say they have little confidence that the voice of equestrians will be heard.

The BHS pointed out that it was quick to tell Secretary of State, Caroline Spellman, of the dangers posed by the proposed sale of forests to the permissive access riders currently enjoy in much of the public forest estate. The BHS offered to provide legal and technical input to the proposed panel.

BHS chief executive Graham Cory said: “For a Government which proclaims its willingness to listen, the voice of the equestrian community is routinely ignored.

“The encouraging words emanating from ministers during the aborted public consultation exercise were obviously empty and offered merely as a sop.

“It is scarcely credible that the Government should have ignored the strong case for an equestrian representative on the panel.”

Horse riders currently have access to only 22 per cent of public rights of way and horse drawn vehicle drivers to only five per cent, so the permissive access they enjoy in our forests is of immense importance, concludes a statement from the BHS.

An appeal for the donation of fly fringes has been launched by World Horse Welfare to help improve the lives of cart horses in the Central American country of Honduras.

The horses work continuously despite being plagued by swarms of flies.

Halter fly fringes which are made with tassles would make a big difference, says the charity.

World Horse Welfare launched a training project last year to tackle the welfare of the country’s 130,000 horses.

During this the charity discovered that nearly half of the 3,000 cart horses being used in San Pedro Sula were suffering from open sore wounds around their eyes caused by fly bites.

For more information about the appeal, go to www.worldhorsewelfare.org/flyfringe

Former Olympic eventer Karen Dixon will be coaching a group of ex-racehorses and their riders in a free demonstration at Bishop Burton College on April 28.

She will focus on the different techniques she uses for getting the best out of a former racehorse in training.

The demonstration will begin at 7pm and although there is no charge, places should be reserved by emailing [email protected]