Born to Shine on The Centre Line: Kathy
Kathy Loweth is based in Eversley, Hampshire and currently competes at Elementary level and is the next to star in our Born to Shine on the Centre Line feature!
Riding since she was very young, she was poorly on holiday and her Mum asked her what she wanted to do. The answer of course was 'ride a pony'.
Kathy's lovely horse, Pauldary's Ayanda (Annie) is a 12 year old AES Warmblood Skewbald mare. 'After my old mare, Holly retired, we looked for a new mare. We found her on Horsequest as a 5 year old who "hadn't done much". She's a showjumper and when we moved yards, the owner of the yard, Louise Nice happened to be a classically trained dressage rider. I've always wanted to teach Annie the correct way so this was perfect.
'We've had many challenges along the way, not least her being anxious and feral, quirky, a fractured splint bone, tooth removal, a keratoma and acute laminitis caused by her adiponectin levels plummeting. In the last year since she came back into work, we've gone from Intro to Elementary and Louise mentioned Medium by the autumn!'
Kathy’s favourite thing about riding with Dressage Anywhere is not needing to box to a venue: 'because our lorry is off the road, Dressage Anywhere has been a Godsend. We've also returned to jumping which we both love.'
Annie is quite the character - after placing 4th in a class at the Royal Windsor Horse Show, she ran off back to the Showground! Also, she'll take her over reach boots off if left on too long.
To prepare for a dressage test Kathy practices all the harder bits so they become second nature and recommends learn tests off by heart so you can concentrate on your riding.
Kathy's plans for the future include progressing to Medium level and affiliated with British Show Jumping again. But her biggest challenge? Catching Annie from the field! I think we can all relate to that one. To someone just getting started in dressage Kathy says, 'have a go, if you don't try, you won't gain anything'.