As part of our exciting scholarship scheme, our 2006 scholar Daniel Moseley will be keeping us up to date with his busy life in the show jumping world.

KBIS British Equestrian Scholar has had a busy month competing here we catch up with him in his latest diary.

January 2007

It’s that time of year again when the qualifiers for all the major championships are getting underway so after a quieter few months over the festive period we are now busy with shows.

We always try and plan a schedule so that we can take in all the qualifiers we want to and have a strategy which develops the young horses to be confident without over facing them. I have been in a very positive and optimistic mood the last few weeks which really does help when you are competing at the bigger shows with many of the top riders.

Starting earlier this month, I went for some warm-up rounds at Birstwith, to take the horses over a practice round, as part of our training for future qualifiers later on this season. I competed three of my horses, including Utopia Red. After entering in the 1.25m and achieving double clears on all three, I came out with a first place with Utopia Red; qualifying us for the Osborne Refrigeration B and C class qualifier.

Utopia Red went really well and is such a star so I am hoping his progress will continue and the aim is to get him qualified for the Hickstead meeting later in the year which is very exciting. Utopia Red is a 16.1hh, five-year-old, chestnut gelding owned by Fiona Down. We came fourth in the five-year-old championships at Scope Festival last year. We have started the season as I hoped and can only grow in confidence with the more shows we do. He is a very talented horse and we have hopes of him being a major player in the future.

At the end of this month, I will be competing at Addington Manor Premier Show. I am taking three horses so it will be a busy few days. Utopia Red, Port Royal and Think Twice will all be competing so I will let you know how I got on in next months diary.

After that my next show will be the Patchetts Premier Show in March. So we will be getting into training for that throughout February time to get my horses ready for the qualifiers.

Will write soon. Best wishes, Daniel.