Eastern’s winning endeavour
The eastern region retain their title, while a promising horse shines at her first para show
Equissage Pulse Para Home International, Vale View, Leics
THE eastern region retained the para home international team title when Eastern Phosco’s Enlightenment triumphed with 424.44 points, over 16 points clear of runners-up Northern 1. This year’s winning quartet was made up of Joanne Dagley-Cleworth, Amanda Shirtcliffe, Kyrby Brown, and Jason Marques.
The region’s other team, Eastern Phosco’s Illuminati, finished third.
Grade III rider Amanda Shirtcliffe, a member of last year’s winning team, continued her run of good form to pull off two plus70% scores riding her 11-year-old Newman mare New Princess. The pair recently returned from the Waregm CPEDI3* in Belgium.
“She was the overall highest scoring horse, winning the individual grades and both her
‘The use of my legs is very limited so we’re teaching New Princess
to listen to my voice’
GRADE III COMPETITOR AMANDA SHIRTCLIFFE
tests,” smiled Amanda who suffers from the neurological disorder dystonia. “I was worried she might be a bit tired after Belgium, but she gets better the more she does.”
The pair have been working on improving their pirouettes and getting them quicker.
“There is still plenty of work to do, but the improvements are showing in the scores,” added Amanda, who keeps her horses with her trainer Louise Robson of Thoroughbred Dressage. “The use of my legs is very limited, so we’re training her to listen to my voice.”
Also on both last year’s and this year’s winning team was grade I rider Jason Marques, with a different ride this year — 11-yearold ex-eventer Bobby VII, who is on loan to the Chigwell Riding Trust from Naomi Crockett.
Jason, who is profoundly deaf and has cerebral palsy, has been riding at Chigwell for 12 years. He won both his novice A tests.
“Sunday’s test went much better as Bobby was more active,” said Jason, whose family business CU Phosco Lighting sponsors the eastern para teams. “Our
plan is to do well at the summer championships, and then think about FEI classification.”
MAKING THE A TEAM
THE team’s third member, grade V rider Joanne DagleyCleworth, was promoted to the “A team” this year, having competed on the eastern region’s “B team” last year.
Riding Michael Angelo, a 14-year-old Dutch warmblood by Medoc she bought last February, Joanne also exceeded 70% in both her tests.
“I used to event and then I developed cauda equina syndrome, caused by a complication during spinal surgery, in 2012,” said Joanne. “I spent six months in rehab, but the pain was dreadful, so I had an MRI scan, which showed up fragments of disc still in my spine. I had another operation to remove the fragments but it left me with nerve damage to the left side, which impairs my balance and strength. I have a whip on the left and use my weight a bit differently because I can’t feel my left seat bone.”
Joanne also competes in able-bodied dressage, too, and has just started competing at elementary level.
“We’ve qualified for the novice regionals, and I rode the silver novice A test for the first time this weekend, which we won,” added Joanne, who trains with Charlotte Lassetter and
Kim Darlow. “We want to qualify for the silver championships in the summer and we’ve already qualified for the bronze championships, so I’ll hopefully contest both those titles at Solihull in the summer.”
The team’s fourth member Kyrby Brown (grade II) was also promoted to the first team this year riding Laura Johnson’s 17-year-old Belgium warmblood Sambuca.
Kyrby has arthrogryposis, which causes severe weakness and lack of use in all four limbs. This means she can’t wrap her legs around the horse or use the joints in her arms, which are in a fixed position.
“We were hoping to win, as we had a strong team this year,” said Kyrby, who topped her novice A test and competed in her first ever gold team test.
“We’ve been working on getting his paces bigger, which is paying off.” H&H