2019 Roundup
2019 was a big year for Fred Hodges Training
Together with owners and horses Fred competed successfully in the BD national championships, RoR national championships and paraded in the main ring at Gatcombe Festival of Eventing.
Lisa Kent's fabulous retrained racehorse- Leaveittorog, better known as Arthur won the medium championships at Aintree and Blenheim and was runner up in the high performance class at Aintree. He thern went on to become reserve champion in British Dressages own RoR medium class in the Nettex associated championships. We were very proud of their accomplishments and Lisa and Arthur received praise from around the world on how well we managed this horse with very complicated kissing spine issues.
In January Fred started training the unbroken four year old, Keystone Drumroll (George) for the owner Tracy Cooper. They did their first BD 4 year old class at Addington Manor Premier League in March where although well behaved George basically ran out of stamina! They continued their campaign at Wellington where they improved their score before going onto finish 2nd at Widmer with a score close to 80%. This qualified George to compete in the Hartpury Festival of Dressage, a busy international where they scored over 80% to qualify for the BD national championships at Stoneleigh in September. George went onto produce a super test at Stoneleigh to finish 10th in the UK.
Amidst all these competitions Fred was busy working away with his clients of all levels. The Vale of Aylesbury Pony Club teams managed to qualify an unprecedented 8 teams for the national championships across all levels. Fred was instrumental in their developments and training and was with them at all the key competitions. Sadly the nationals were cancelled due to unusual bad weather.
In recognition of his work with Pony Club Fred was hired by British Eventing as a central region youth coach. Fred attended some of the late season BE u18 classes and is beginning to meet the riders who are part of that program.
Fred's other clients have continued to be successful with clients ranging from total beginners through to riders at BD and BE championship level.
Fred continued his work with the British Horse Society. At the BHS Fred is an active Lead Assessor and a Centre Inspector. Fred was very lucky to be asked to go abroad and assessed in Beijing in the Spring.
Fred has travelled to China for other coaching endeavours too. He is now working on a regular basis with clubs in the South of China. Fred is learning Mandarin and in the Spring he achieved HSK level 1.
Overall it was a pretty good year so we're looking forward to seeing what we can do in the future!