Beverly Place completed Your Horse’s Hack 1,000 Miles Challenge alongside her two daughters, 13-year-old Elodie and 11-year-old Daisy, on their three ponies, Lizzie, Missi and Meg.
“We wanted a challenge and we wanted to ride more,” says Beverly when asked what the family’s motivation was to start the challenge.
“We live in the Highlands in Scotland, and it is difficult to get to many shows or events. My daughters are in the Pony Club, which is a two-hour drive away, and there doesn’t seem to be a riding club here for me to join.”
During the challenge, the trio did some pony-swapping.
“When we started I rode Lizzie, our 14.2hh Highland, Elodie and Daisy shared Missi, who is a 13.2hh New Forest pony, and only Daisy was small enough to ride Shetland Meg, but we all drove her,” explains Beverly.
“By the end, Elodie was too heavy for Missi, so now we share Lizzie, and Daisy was too big for Meg so she has Missi for herself.”
The family headed out twice a day where possible to make up the miles.
“Now that Elodie and I share Lizzie we try to do our two-mile route twice each day so we both get a reasonable ride in after school, and we take it in turns to walk Meg out in-hand,” says Beverly, who co-owns a self-catering holiday park with her husband.
“Whenever we can take Meg for an extra lap of the woods we do — it adds on the all important extra mile!”
‘I have an ambition to get a bridge’
Elodie riding Lizzie and Daisy riding Missi across the river
Beverly found the biggest obstacle was finding local places to ride.
“Lizzie is traffic shy, and we have a main road running through our village which is difficult for me to ride along, meaning that the hacking at home is quite restricted,” says Beverly, 45.
“Our best hacking is close to home, just on the other side of the river. We weren’t able to ride through the river because the bed is too slippery — I have an ambition to get a bridge!”
In an effort to reach the other side, Beverly reached out to other riders in our Hack 1000 Miles Facebook group for advice.
“The group has been extremely helpful whenever we’ve had a problem,” says Beverly who, after some brainstorming, put a plan together and now has a crossing to use.
“In the end the three of us chucked rocks around for an hour, clearing as well as we could a path through the riverbed,” explains Beverly.
“We did leave Meg the Shetland at home as we thought she would get a wet tummy.”
Look what’s inside the latest issue of Your Horse
