Rebecca Bell: "Putting My Personal Dreams of U25 Grand Prix Aside"

Thu, 06/04/2020 - 10:16
Blog
"When your horse won’t put her ears forward for the photo, you have to improvise"

In my short – and it is short – dressage career so far, I have been exceptionally lucky: I have never, ever dreaded going into a prize giving. I have never had to be held by someone on the ground, or been unable to stop, or cringed as my pride and joy launched itself across the arena on all-too-damageable legs. In fact, after Una (Nibeley Union Hit) and I won our winter national title in 2017, someone approached us and offered to buy her as para horse, due to her wonderful behaviour in the prize giving. To us, she is priceless, and I was equally lucky to be in a position where I didn’t need to sell her.

Time to Slow Down

Three years of international competition and success later and the same horse, who has always made me feel safe in the ring, has told me that she wants to slow down. Nothing dramatic, but a feeling as we collect and pirouette and change and extend: “mum, I think I’ve done enough of this now”. The sweetest mare I have ever had the pleasure of riding – and I have been blessed with three wonderful mares in my life – has asked me to do the right thing by her, and I owe it to her.

We all owe it to our horses, because they never actually owed anything to us at all. Every competitive experience I have had with Una has been a bonus after she was all but written off with injury in 2015; she is the product of a wonderful and extensive team of people who have believed in her, nurtured her, and helped her to be a happy athlete. But it is Una who, at my request, reached into her reserves when she was tired, or pulled an extended trot out of the bag in sweltering weather, or stood angelically in prize giving for me. She didn’t owe me any of it, but she did it anyway.

Putting My Personal Dreams of U25 Grand Prix Aside

The significance of this debt that every rider owes is cast even more sharply into relief by the current COVID-19 situation, where many have been separated from their horses; they give us such an enormous amount of happiness. Of course, people in the equestrian community work incredibly hard, often sacrificing things for themselves in order to give their horses the best life possible, and the vast majority of competition horses are incredibly happy and intensely loved.

Every rider does their best to repay their debt to their horse, for me, I am doing it by putting my personal dreams of U25 Grand Prix aside and doing the right thing by Una. I still hope for a miraculously lucky break where I get the chance to ride a horse for someone at that level next year, but no-one owes me that either! I have had a wonderful time as an U21 rider and wouldn’t change a second of it – although the chance to finish my time with Una at the Europeans at Hartpury would have been wonderful.

Honoured

The reminder that Una owed me none of the last seven years of success and joy that we have shared doesn’t dishearten me, but instead makes me feel honoured that she was prepared to. She will stay with my family forever, whatever she decides that her next role will be.

I hope that we may be able to have a Young Riders level swan song together at British Dressage’s proposed U25 Championships at the end of this year, after having enjoyed a summer of having fun and working at a gentler pace, and maybe we’ll be able to have another trip to the beach, which she loved last time.

We will enjoy each other’s company for as long as we both remain at home (she will be staying for a lot longer than me, or I’m sure that my father hopes so!) and perhaps one day she will breed a future superstar for me.

She doesn’t owe me anything more though – and she never really did.

- by Rebecca Bell

Rebecca Bell is a British young rider in her final year in the U21 division. She graduated from reading English at Oxford University, having combined her studies with an international dressage rider career. In her pony career she won team gold, silver and bronze at the European Pony Championships (2013-2015). She was a Junior European team member in 2016 and represented Great Britain at the 2019 European Young Riders Championships.

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