Horse Life Stories - Rooster

Hello again, here is another one of my horse life stories series, giving you a bit of an insight into the life history of one of my stable mates. This time its Rooster.  

love Pilgrim 

He's known as Rooster here at Calvert Trust Exmoor, but when he was born in 1994 he was called "Lively Lord". at 21 years old he is the oldest horse here! He’s chestnut coloured and stands at 16.2hh. Rooster is a Thoroughbred which means he was bred for racing.

Rooster in our indoor arena

Rooster's life here is a lot quieter than his previous job, as he was a race horse. He was born in County Down in Ireland.

He raced his first race when he was 4 years old, his trainer was Mr R Ferguson, and Mr B R Hamilton was the jockey and they finished 5th! He continued to race in Ireland both on the flat and over hurdles for another couple of years.

In 2000 Rooster was bought over to England and lived in Kent.  He continued to race point to point, and had some success, winning his first outing at Godstone and his second Penshurst. He continued to race for another 8 years; his last race was on the 27th January 2008.

At the age of 14 Rooster retired from racing, he had worked hard and needed a bit of a quieter life.  He was very lucky and landed on his feet in a private home on Dartmoor, where Rooster and his new owners enjoyed hours of hacking through the beautiful countryside. Rooster says he loved this as he could still have a gallop and stretch his long legs! 

In 2013 Calvert Trust Exmoor was looking for a new horse to come and join the stables team. Rooster’s owners saw the advert and thought this would be the perfect job for him. After a month long trial Rooster officially joined our team; we are very lucky to have Rooster as he is on long term loan to us, and we really appreciate his owners lending him to us.

Rooster is a huge favourite here, not just with staff but the guests too; it’s not every day you can say you've ridden a race horse! Rooster does a lot less galloping now but still loves to work, so he gets a wide variety of different riders.

He is especially good for people who need to ride a narrower horse, he is used in lessons for guests staying at the centre and for private lessons, and he is even trained as a hoist horse.

This requires the horse to stand and be very patient for a long period of time (what a huge contrast to the start of his carer!). This year Rooster has even had a go at doing dressage, he was very good and even won a rosette, although he did get a little excited when he was warming up with lots of horses he didn't know. Perhaps he thought he was going racing again!

Rooster loves being out with the other horses and chases any new horses around to show them who's boss! We hope Rooster stays here with us for many years to come.

Pilgrim's horseshoe icon was created by stolkramaker from Noun Project

Horse Life Stories - Brin

Hi folks its Pilgrim here! sorry it's been a while since my last post, I've been super busy with our lovely guests!

I thought you might like to find out a bit more detail about my friends in the stables, so I'm going to write a series of posts, one for each of them.

Here's the first one, about my friend Brin;

Brin (or should that be Picasso?)

Despite being known to all his friends here as Brin, he is actually neither Welsh, nor called Brin! He was born in 2005, at Lionheart Stud in Warwickshire, and his name is really Picasso.

Brin’s colour is bay roan, his father was a lemon and white stallion and his mother was a piebald mare. He stands at 16.1hh, which means he is 16 hands and 1 inch high. 

Just in case you don't know horses are measured from the ground to the top of the withers, which is the ridge between a horse's shoulders. A hand is equivalent to 4 inches, so Brin is 65 inches high (5 ft 5 inches, or 165 cm).

Brin was bought from Lionheart stud as a foal, and brought to live in sunny Devon by his owner Rosie.  He grew up on a quiet farm just down the road from Calvert Trust Exmoor where he lived with his 2 best friends Cloud and Dandy who were both Shetland ponies like me!  No wonder we are such good friends.

He was broken to ride and drive when he was 4 year old, and has always been very gentle and laid back, possibly a little too laid back at times!

Brin joined us here at Calvert Trust Exmoor in 2012. To start with he came on a 6 month loan, but he got on so well with all us that the stables staff arranged to buy him, and he's been with us ever since.

Brin is not the tallest horse here but he most certainly has the biggest build, he’s a gentle giant!  He's great at helping lots of different people here; mainly during lessons for centre guests as he’s very steady.  Brin is also trained as a hoist horse as he’s so laid back and patient; this is one of Brin’s favourite jobs as he gets to stand still! 

Brin also loves to go out hacking in the woods; although he’s a big horse he can be a bit of a wimp sometimes especially when it comes to tractors! 

Although he is trained for carriage driving Brin doesn't do any driving here as he’s too big to fit in our carriage, but sometimes he gets to harrow the riding arenas to make them level. Brin tells me he enjoys doing this as its a different challenge to just been ridden and is another way of keeping him fit and healthy. 

As well as being my big friend Brin is also very friendly with Teddy; being so laid back he actually gets along well with all the other horses and ponies here. He's a very special member of the team and has given lots of people a great riding experience. I hope Brin is able to keep doing his job here for many years to come.