Yes, you heard it. The devil reincarnated. He doesn't hack, he doesn't hunt, he can't for the life of him produce a nice XC round... Introducing, the one, the only Bentley!
Every evil entity and his brother has a mask; well, this is his. I could make a list of all the nasty things he's done... In fact, I will!
Jumped out of stable,
Got us kicked out of a hunt & pony camp,
Snapped the rounding off of hi pelham,
He rears... just not nice,
Stopped and bolted on a road,
Jumped out of the field,
Trampled my instructor,
Reared up and broke our 15k horsebox,
Broke the trailer...
'"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, if I don't look it'll be alright!" Ok. So I could have probably sat this better, but I didn't fall off! (I know, I'm very proud)
There's definitely more, but I don't want to put him in a bad light... (If I haven't already.) Because it's really not his fault. He was sat in a field for about five years before we got our hands on him. The only reason I got to have a go on him was that someone decided it was a good idea to go and slit her leg open. We thought she would be alright but got the vet out anyway, and she was fine, and she healed perfectly well! Anyway, the yard owner pulled him out of the field and asked if I wanted to have a shotty on him... It was one of those moments when the whole yard shows up to watch you ride and you think, "What the shit is wrong." But he was amazing. We just sort of clicked so after a few months of riding him and then another few months of loaning, on the 30th of December of 2019, we welcomed him to the family. Everyone was thrilled, but unfortunately, my pony who had injured herself and healed had to be pts at the age of 6 due to other complications. (RIP Marle moon, I still miss you <3)
picture of wonder pony
Now down to one pony, after getting over luna, work was put into Bentley. Lots of work. Brakes were drilled into him along with trying to stop the whole rearing thing. None of it was pain as we had him vet checked and he only reared OUTSIDE of the arena. Like when he left the yard or was taken out of the field. He didn't like trailering or stabling for a long time either. Like I mentioned, he quite literally jumped this huge stable door that he could barely see over from a standstill:
We fixed trailering by doing a small trip around the block every day, and so he got better. He still, however, didn't enjoy stabling. He started to rear and got his front legs stuck over the door a good few times, so it started to get dangerous. We filled the place with toys and treats and tried to just get him to settle, and he did for a long time. He was put on calmer to keep his nerves at bay and made sure the stable and an enjoyable place for him, only bringing him in to feed him and tack him up. Everything was alright until one day we were told the hunt was coming past. He then went bonkers. We couldn't put him in the pasture, because they were going through those fields, so we had to shut the top door and let him tire himself out, as we couldn't go in with him for the fear of being trampled. As far as we knew, he had only ever hunted once, but as the hunting horn went off, he seemed to know exactly what was happening. It took us a while to get him calm again, but it did happen with time.
It was also this time we found out he had mud fever on both of his front legs... So you know what we did? The feathers had to go.:
Before:
After:
Of course, though he had to keep the mane, the feathers needed to leave so that his legs could dry out, he was treated with baby oil, pig oil (same thing) and malanders cream, and we tried to keep his legs dry and clean as possible without bathing him, that's where the pig oil came in and the malanders creme was to soothe once the whole scab had dried out. Once they had gotten better, of course, we let the feathers come back! He was being seen daily so we could keep an eye on how he was doing, and his feathers would help them if they're kept clean.
At a little after this point, we had owned him for about a year, and we decided we wanted to know what he would be like popping a jump, so we threw my little sister on him... And well...:
So, he LOVED it. He got so excited and decided it was just his thing, so we took him to a few shows, only at 70cm...
So he really found his thing. Everything was really coming together, and we were really excited for him. No more sitting in a field and getting fat, he was going places. We started competing up to 100cm after a while, and the look on peoples faces after our 13.hh chunk of a cob whooped their arses was simply priceless. He was always proud of himself as well.
After a while, we decided to go into arena eventing, small again at 70cm and some intro dressage tests, and he proved amazing with his dressage! Scoring in the high 80%! so we moved on to his prelims and had the same outcome. We recently qualified for British dressage champs in Sep, so we really couldn't be happier with my little Demon pony <3 (If we can handle being in a tent stable!)
I'll have to keep you updated when we go to champs! <3
The last pic was taken of Mr B: