Jessica Goodier

From a very young age I was hooked on horses, sitting on my Auntie’s show jumpers I felt at home in the saddle, my affinity with horses was born. Sharon at the time taught riding lessons at a local riding school, so inevitably as soon as I could walk I was on board learning to ride. One Christmas, I was around aged 4, came my very first pony all wrapped in tinsel and I’ve never looked back. Although you would think that show jumping would be in my blood, I hated jumping with a passion (still not fond of it as an adult!) and so my Auntie’s dream of me jumping tracks following in her footsteps were clearly not going to happen! And as such, she bought my very first lead rein pony at around age 6; although not top class, she was the perfect pony to take me from the lead to first ridden classes and introduce me to the show ring. Many a shows saw Sharon hurriedly dismounting her show jumpers and scrambling to pull on a skirt over her breeches to lead me, where we competed at riding club level with great success. My next pony saw the start of my affiliated riding career, no mean feat jumping up onto a 14h SHP, this pony took a very inexperienced jockey to stand champion SHP at Somerford Park over the formidable Doctor Dolittle; I galloped my heart out that day and qualified for the Champion of Champions at the BSPS Summer Champs. With the full support of the Marshbrook Stud behind me supplying me the most beautiful ponies, we went on to experience our first HOYS qualification after a very nervous 2hr wait for the 40 ponies to be judged, to head the line up on Marshbrook Limited Edition. Harry also gave me my first ride at RIHS, he was a wonderful pony and I am so grateful for Wendy allowing us to have him. Totally home produced, even breaking at home and through schooling and lessons with my instructor Aysha Heath (Danielle’s older sister) we worked until we made it to the ring. The feeling of riding at the top is absolutely unrivalled, it was then my mind was made up, I was going to do everything in my power to feel it year after year. Before the decision to move to being produced due to work commitments, I was lucky enough to qualify a string of ponies over the years, from SHP Intermediate Show Riding Types, Hacks and even Heritage ponies. My horse of a lifetime however is Hot Gossip X, Diego or DD as he’s more commonly known, standing 3rd & 5th, at HOYS qualifying year in year out, he always took me into the line up to stand alongside my showing idols. The year we were 3rd was my ultimate showing moment, it was like winning HOYS for me! Standing behind Allister Hood, riding the unbeaten Diamonds are Forever, and Martin Skelton I was the first non-professional show rider in the line-up, a day dreams are made of! D also gave me my first placing in the open classes and ride in a championship at RIHS, definitely ticking off another bucket list item for me. He is simply incredible and I’m so thankful to Team Holder for all of their hard work and patience with him over the years before his retirement. Another first for me comes after all of my years in the ring is riding a Show Cob – I know I’m in the very best of hands and am so grateful to the team for everything they do. Here’s to the future and Blimey O’Reilly!