Rescue horse of the Year

After launching the Your Horse awards in September, we’ve been sorting through all the nominees and picked our winner for each category.

Here is the winner of Rescue Horse of the Year:

Angel nominated by Natalie Smith 

Angel was signed over to the Blue Cross in 2000 by the RSPCA. She was in an emaciated state with a high red worm count and badly cracked and over grown hooves. She was also in foal but sadly her foal died within minutes of being born. On top of that one of Angel’s eyes was badly damaged due to her being born with a rare congenital abnormality and she had severe muscle damage on both sides of her neck.

Angel was rehomed to me December 2008 and has totally changed my life. Before I got her I was too scared to jump, found schooling boring and only really hacked out. She’s taught me everything I know, we are now competing at Prelim and Novice level dressage and have recently come back from Trailblazer Dressage Championship where we exceeded all our expectations by obtaining 68.8% on the final day of competing.

She has given me so much confidence jumping as well and we are now regularly competing in local show jumping competition and have jumped 3ft at home! Angel has a natural ability to teach people - she’s been helping my originally non-horsey partner to learn to ride.

But that isn’t the reason she deserves to win, she deserves to win because she really is an Angel. She went through hell and back as a youngster and is still so trusting and caring. Her temperament and personality is absolutely beautiful. She is there for me whenever I need a cuddle but is also quick enough to give me telling off when I need to buck up my ideas and up my game. She’s changed me and my life for the better and has taught me to believe in myself, to never give up, that miracles can happen and that Angels really do exist.