A few weeks back Georgie was approached by the Retraining of Racehorses (ROR) and asked if she would parade Beanie aka Historical Giant at the Dubai Future Champions Festival on Saturday 8th October at Newmarket Racecourse. Of course she said yes without a moment’s hesitation! It’s been something that Georgie has always wanted to do ever since having an ex racehorse all those years ago with Marcus.
For me I was extremely pleased for Georgie, not only to have the opportunity to show off B as the beautiful well behaved boy he is, but to also have her achievements recognised as a successful Eastern Region member. She works extremely hard due to working part time at Newmarket Equine Hospital, raising a beautiful 4 year old daughter, Frankie, and keeping a horse like B fit schooled and looked after!
Beanie isn’t just a horse you can get on after a week of no exercise, he’d be fresh as a daisy; he’s a horse who thrives on routine and work due to his very clever brain. With all of that she still has to school him, ride him out to keep him fit and jump him; that’s an awful lot of work for one person to be doing! Therefore I feel that her achievements speak for themselves; she’s never had another person professionally school Beanie like many others have done when they have children, she’s done it all herself. She’s achieved a high level in County showing, having qualified for both the Tattersalls Show Series final at Hickstead and the ROR Jumping Challenge final at Royal Windsor Horse Show in 2017. As well as all the jumping he has been doing (including the Show Jumping at the Newmarket Open Weekend)!
Anyway, enough be gushing with praise for my sister!
With a plan in place, Georgie, Mum and I got Beanie spruced up and ‘show ring ready’, before we loaded up and made our way to Newmarket Rowley Mile Racecourse in plenty of time. We arrived just in time before the crowds decended and the entrance got busy, thank god!
Beanie was in a very good mood and pleased to be somewhere exciting! We unloaded him and I looked after him while Georgie got herself ready. Just as Georgie had gotten her boots and jacket on Laura from ROR arrived and gave us our coloured number cloth for the parade. Sadly we couldn’t use the one with his name on but that’s another story! In no time at all B was tacked up and Georgie ready to get on. She mounted and let him have a look at his surroundings, it really was very busy down there and B was happy to take it all in.
After letting him get his head around the busy buzzing atmosphere, Georgie warmed up and got him listening to her actions, while the rest of the horses and riders arrived. It wasn’t long until it was 12.50pm and we were instructed to make our way over to the pre-parade ring. All the horses looked extremely smart and ready to be shown off! As the horses made their way through to the pre-parade ring it gave many of the horses their first glance back at a racecourse since their retirement; it certainly was for B!
With race goers bustling round the parade ring for a glimpse, the horses made their way down to the main parade ring to start the commentary. B was cool as you like, having a little look round before settling nicely into a beautiful outline. Mum and I stood in the middle of the ring watching on smiling proudly.
The ROR had given the commentators information about all 10 horses before-hand, so in number order each horse and rider was spoken about and their previous racing life and achievements were recalled for the spectators. We were extremely pleased to see that the parade ring was lined with people watching these ex stars and retrained champs parade, eager to find out all about them. Many of whom had followed these stars in their racing careers and were keen to see them again and find out what they had been up to since their retirement from racing.
As many of you know Beanie was not a successful racehorse; he was bought at Keeneland sales for an awful lot of money by John Magnier and flown to Ireland to be backed and start training with Aiden O’Brien. There he promptly ran once and was sold; Aiden must have said “useless” and passed him on. There he went to Ed Vaughan for a couple of years and it was there he raced for the remainder of his career. Alas he still remained a fairly useless (finished in the middle of the field every race) racehorse and never actually won a penny for his owners. He was sold again and went to Jane Chapple-Hyam where he never raced again. Jane cautiously told his owners he may well break down if he raced again and he was sold and ended out of racing. Luckily with nice clean legs; thank you Jane!!
After a summer of ‘de-race horsing’ with Sam Morgan, Georgie bought this gangly looking ginger who showed promise but needed to fill out and muscle up. In the 4 years Georgie has had him he has gone from strength to strength and has flourished. So to see him in front of all those people having all his accomplishments listed for the public it really hit home (for me anyway) just how well they’ve done together as a partnership.
So I’ll finish with lot’s of pictures and to say again how proud I am of Georgie and Beanie and hope the success they deserve long continues!
I am unsure what Georgie has planned for the winter months, perhaps some cross country and hunting if the ground isn’t too soft, but to just have a fun safe winter.
More updates on what I’ve been doing, *hint* lots of riding, soon!
Until next time,
Sophie
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