My name is Emily Attwood, I am 12 years old. My ... - British Dressage

My name is Emily Attwood, I am 12 years old. My hobby and passion is dressage. I started riding
at the age of five at a local riding school, I was lucky enough to get my first pony at the age of 8,
my first pony was a 13.2hh Newforest gelding called Howen Flintoff. In the beginning Flintoff’s
speciality was show jumping after lots of hard work and training together it became apparent that
this was going to be an amazing journey and this is where it all began.
2009 we won the Foxholme unaffiliated junior championships
2010 we won the Foxholme unaffiliated junior championships
After 2 years of competing at unaffiliated prelim/novice we decided it was time to make the big
jump up to affiliated dressage. We also decided to join Northern B.Y.R.D.S. (British young rider’s
dressage scheme) Flintoff and I decided to set ourselves a goal which was to get on Northern
teams and to compete for Northern Region. We continued wining and brought home top scores
when we went out competing and it just got better and better.
2010 to 2011 we did the Dengie Winter League qualifier. We came 1 st with 72% and
qualified for the next round at the second round we came 3 rd with 69% so we qualified
for the championships in Warwickshire.
2011 Chosen to represent B.Y.R.D.S Northern at the Keysoe inter-regional
championships in Bedfordshire. Where we finished 5 th individually and our team finished
6 th .
2011 qualified for Sheepgate under 25’s and finished 6 th on the first day so we qualified
for the championships and we got highest placed fledgling (up to 12 years old)
2011 we went to the South Durham Hunt Pony Club area dressage where I was placed
second with a score of 69%. We then qualified for the Pony Club area dressage
championships where we came 9 th with a score of 69%.
2011 we qualified for the prelim Petplan Area festival at Frys where we finished 10 th

We decide to move Flintoff up to affiliated Novice because he was always achieving well in his
prelims. After doing some novice tests we realised that our scores were not dropping and we
were getting 65% to 67% constantly. However unfortunately we realised that Flintoff was
reaching his ceiling and that I had such high expectations for myself that Flintoff was not capable
of taking me as high as I wanted to go.
October 2011 we decide to look for
an FEI pony that could hopefully take
me further . After the space of two
weeks we found a nice 14.2hh
Dutch FEI pony that would be
perfect and what we were looking
for.
It was quite a difficult transition
from my steady Newforest pony to
a Dutch Warmblood. I am determined to succeed
with Benthli because dressage is my passion. After 4 weeks of
having Benthli we went out and qualified for the 1 st round of the Dengie Winter League
open dressage 2011/2012. I have now had Benthli nine months, our journey is proving to be very
exciting. We have qualified for the Sheepgate Under 25’s Elementary in August and Pet Plan
Area Festival Elementary in September.
I train several times a week with Sophie Barker, I have been training with Sophie for 12 months
now we have great fun my lessons are amazing and once a month I train with various B.Y.R.D.S
trainers. We work really hard, my ponies and dressage is my life. I know that I will never stop with
my dressage because after trying lots of other horse riding disciplines I found that I was a
dressage rider. I love riding and I ride my ponies every night after school and also on a weekend.
I don’t mind that my life is all about ponies because that is just the way I like it.