Holme Park Halle
Basic information:
Holme Park Halle, born 11 May 2004
Full bred Trakehner, bred by Home Park Stud in Bedfordshire
Sire (Dad) Holme Grove Solomon
Dam (Mum) Holme Park Holy Night
Damsire (Maternal Grandfather) Caprimond
Interesting fact; she has what could be called a birthmark on the off-side hind quarter which looks like a dirty stable stain. Weird!!
Background:
It’s a little sketchy, with hearsay and guess work, but from what we can tell she stayed with Holme Park Stud until she was sold as a 3yo, Breeders website, and had 3 settled homes until 2013. At some point she’s been used as a brood mare, and it’s our belief that this caused some skeletal damage to her back/pelvis. As pure guess work we’ve deducted that it’s likely from this she became a horse who bucked when ridden and began on a journey we can’t follow until early 2016. With a far amount of speculation her unverified story continues; she was found (by the person we bought her from) at a less than reputable dealers yard in a very poor condition. She was bought for not other reason than “to just get her away from there”, so she really didn’t have a purpose and was used as a companion mare and a hack; they showed her a couple of times but really didn’t have the time to give her the attention she deserved.
Bought by Lise-Marie Collins of Graceland Equestrian on 11th Feb 2017
Work in Progress
Halle arrived in the February as a very quiet mare but as soon as she started into ridden work she started to buck when in canter. Immediately we called in our favourite Animal Musculoskeletal Therapist (specializing in McTimoney and Equinology Chiropratic & Bodywork), Jin Langstone of Kismet Animal Therapy who immediately found the cause of her problems; her pelvis was out so far that it was the worst case Jin had seen in her career to date. Poor girl was trying to tell people but nobody would listen, until us. Just when we thought we were over those problems, spring truly arrived and mares started to come into season. From this Halle’s behaviour started to become very very difficult and she really acted out as the “chestnut mare” everyone dreads. The yard owner (and qualified BHSAI) Lucy Ashworth had seen this before and had plenty of experience with difficult mares; after consultation with the vet he prescribed a synthetic hormone called altrenogest (trade name Regumate). It is the only such medication proven to have progesterone-type biologic activity in horses. This had an immediate calming effect and although to this day we will say that Halle is still a “chestnut mare”, but she’s now easily handled and genuinely sweet at times.
Work began in earnest to turn Halle into a true Dressage horse. She is naturally gifted and talented with 3 expressive paces, but needed this raw behaviour schooled and trained into something magical. She was taken to her first dressage clinic (Test riding, where you ride the test once, get de-briefed by the judge and then ride the test again) in April 2017. Straight away she was getting some 7’s/10 but her canter work still needed improvement. We took her to her first competition in May 2017 and amazing that she won her prelim class; all of the hard work was starting to show.
Our focus has turned to competing and we’ve been our several times recently and getting far more consistent scores than ever before. In prelim tests we’re usually at at 65% and starting novice we’ve always gotten over 60% and now we’re heading towards the mid 60’s. So pleased but have a watch below at our performances, warts and all because as you’ll know we are still a work in progress.
The videos’ both above and below were taken at Quainton (thanks to Georgina Crockett for helping our with the camera work) and for me this was the absolute best she has gone to date. The canter transitions weren’t perfect but for her they were a vast improvement on what we’ve been getting previously. But everything id difficult and Halle doesn’t EVER give you something for nothing. However, watch for the medium trot below and see why this amazing little horse has so much potential.
Currently
Halle was never bought to be kept in the long term but to give Lise-Marie the experience she needed to help her pass the BHS stage 3 exam. Since the Lise-Marie has worked tirelessly to ensure she is in the best place possible so that her next home will be her final 5* forever home.
However, it looks like Halle has ideas of her own. Since Stig has been diagnosed with Navicular in front, DJD in his hocks and to top it off kissing spine, Lise-Marie is focusing on him being the dressage horse to allow him to build up his topline and live as long as possible pain free. Also Halle was living up to the comments passed when she was bought – ‘un-rideable broodmare who bucks’ with her escapades at a BD event. Have a look at Naughty Halle…..
Just a week after this video was taken Halle went mystery lame. We called the vet who found nothing wrong and then a week later, when she couldn’t walk, called the farrier who found an abscess. Unfortunately this was just the start of it. No sooner had this fixed then she managed to rip open both hind legs overnight in her stable. And from all that she just never came right again, taking away my chances of having her as my amazing Dressage horse.
The Future
Not really the future Lise-Marie had hoped for but we found a great home where she will be a companion until the spring with a view to going to Stud as a brood mare. The best we could hope for under the circumstances as this mare really didn’t do anything to help herself sometimes.