The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Karen Mowat and her gelding Rocky will enter the UK’S top horse show – but bad luck and illness meant it wasn’t easy
Winning the heavyweight hunters at the Royal Highland Show and qualifying for Horse of the Year Show is a dream come true for Ross-shire rider Karen Mowat. She has never even visited the UK’S top horse show, never mind riding at it and she is still pinching herself every day.
The achievement is all the greater considering the health problems she has experienced over the last year, including going temporarily blind with a detached retina in March.
Karen, 55, who has five acres at her home at Munlochy near Inverness, has always had horses and ponies, but the chestnut Irish Draught gelding, Ballerin The Conqueror (Rocky) by Rockrimmon Silver Diamond, is quite special.
She explained: “In 2014 my house was flooded and subsequently went on fire due to a faulty water main. It was a pretty miserable time and horses had to take a back seat, but once I was back home and up and running again I started looking for my ‘forever’ horse.”
She found him in the five-year-old Rocky. However, after flying across to Dublin, trying him and loving him, the price rocketed way out of her budget and she came home very disappointed. Unable to find anything else suitable in the interim, Karen was back in Ireland the following year looking at horses when an advertisement for Rocky popped up on her tablet. She immediately phoned but he was still out of her price range. Close friend Brenda Mcintyre, who had gone with her to see him in Ireland the previous year, believed he was the right horse for Karen, even offering to buy a leg, so a deal was struck.
She said: “I wasn’t able to go and try him the second time so when he arrived I hadn’t seen Rocky for some 15 months. He was certainly well but, like me, too much of a good doer. As I was very rusty, we went back to basics, doing lots of hacking and trying to manage our calories. The change of lifestyle seems to suit him and he is an ideal amateur’s horse.”
Recovering from torn knee ligaments, Karen only campaigned Rocky lightly last year at eight shows, and winning seven, but he missed both the Highland and the Scottish Horse Show due to Karen’s ill health and lack of confidence. He did, however, qualify for the 2018 Royal International Horse show at Cabin Equestrian.
All set for a serious campaign this year, Karen was dealt a body blow when, after carpel tunnel surgery, followed by a broken foot, she suffered retinal tears and then a detached retina. This left her reliant on a very good bunch of friends, who cared for both her and her horses from November to April. A successful operation at the end of March gave her sight back although it is still not as good as it should be and she is awaiting a further operation.
She said: “This was not really the preparation I had hoped for but encouraged by trainers James Munro and Russell Skelton, who have been absolutely brilliant in their help and support, we made it to the Highland.
“I was a nervous wreck but Rocky did not put a foot wrong to win his class. I really feel I owe the win to all my wonderful friends, who have been with me every step of the way.”
Karen is an admin manager for the Scottish Government’s Rural Payment and Inspection division in Inverness, but in her spare time she enjoys teaching at local pony and riding clubs and judging.
She is on the BSPS panel for riding and hunter ponies and also, more recently, working hunter ponies.
She said, “I always used to have a riding pony of native youngster to bring out and show and I also helped my dear friend William Allan with his Cairnfield ponies so I wanted to put something back into the sport.
“I have learned so much from the training, especially about conformation and I love having the opportunity to judge beautiful ponies. It also gives me the chance to indulge my hat fetish!”
She and Rocky are now looking forward to competing in both the open and amateur heavyweights at the Royal International at Hickstead in July.