Meet Cosmo

The Facts

I am so excited to introduce my new steed – Cosmo.

Cosmo is a 4 year old 16.2hh Irish Sport Horse. His official name is Killossery Diamond Ring and he’s by Jack of Diamonds out of Killossery Ringwood (Dam Sire: Touchdown).

He was broken as a 3 year old by the person I bought him from. He hasn’t done much but he’s been hacked up and down busy back roads to the extent where he leads the pack and has done a good bit of cross country and has proven to be an absolute machine. His flatwork needs a fair amount of work but he has great foundations which so far has made working with him very rewarding.

I know this all seems to have happened quite quickly and come out of no where so I wanted to take some time to explain how it all came about…

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How it Happened

To be honest it all happened so fast I could barely keep up but it feels like things have worked out the way they’re supposed to.

About 3 weeks ago I made the very difficult decision to sell Coco. Considering I hadn’t been riding her for the last 2 months and she was a bit unfit, I decided to send her to a sales livery yard (which comes highly recommended) where she would get the focus and work she needs to get her fit and ready to sell. Considering my injury, it would be another few weeks before I was back to full strength so this seemed like the best choice for the two of us.

After making that decision the excitement of the horse search began. I had a scope through DoneDeal and made some enquiries to get a feel for prices. Being totally transparent, I was originally looking for something a bit older around 9/10/11 years old that had been there and done it all so I could go out and have fun competing at the level I wanted to be at. And then Sue Byrne (friend + coach + horse-finder extraordinaire) made some enquiries to her friends in the industry which turned up a ‘fabulous grey gelding’. We were given tidbits of information – ‘the one from Killossery’, ‘by Jack of Diamonds’, ‘brave as a lion’. So far I was hearing all the right things until I heard that he was 4 years old. I had to think ‘did I really want to go down that road again?’ I reasoned that the right horse with good breeding might be doable so I’d at least have a look. One thing we didn’t have yet though was a picture and there was the possibility of someone else taking him so I wasn’t getting my hopes up on this guy…until…

…the next day we made a last minute decision to pop out and see him. My phone was hopping the whole drive over as I was being sent pictures and videos of this ‘fabulous grey gelding’ in action. When I finally had a chance to take a look I suddenly became very excited about the horse I was going to see. He really was fabulous and seemed very easy going around a course of fences.

It was short notice on a Sunday afternoon so the owner was not prepared to ride him first so I just hopped straight up. The very first thing I noticed and loved was how responsive he was off my leg. All he needed was light little squeezes to encourage him forward, just what I like in a horse. I was told he had no flatwork and this would need work so I had zero expectations for an outline but low and behold all I had to do was ask and he gradually settled into a lovely rhythm and came into a shape. He was heavy in my hands and had all the typical tendencies of an unbalanced youngster but despite all that, he just blew me away. He was such a genuine horse, happy to work and didn’t give a fiddlers about the other horses galavanting around the field beside us.

I gave him a quick pop over a handful of jumps – my first time jumping since I fell and not once did I feel in any way nervous. This horse made me feel so comfortable and confident. I just trusted that he would look after me and he did – even when we struggled to get a straight line into a jump and he only found his take off point 2 strides out!! In the end that’s what totally sold me on him.

So I had fallen in love with the first horse I tried but sometimes things are just meant to be so next up was to get a vetting organised. Amazingly we were able to arrange for a vet to come out the next day. It was probably the longest day of my life but it ended up being so worth it as he only went and passed!! By the end of the day I was organising when I was going to pick him up which would be the following Saturday – and so started the longest week of my life!!

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I am so excited to get working with this guy. He has such potential and I think we can have so much fun together. As with all youngsters, I know it’s not going to be all plain sailings but I learned such a huge amount from my time with Coco so I’m looking forward to putting it all to the test with my new guy.

Thanks so much for reading and if you have any questions at all please just drop me a comment below, Ill be happy to answer anything 🙂

Orla