Vicky Madsen is a British event rider who currently competes at 4* level on her homebred horse By Crikey (William). William is not your traditional 4* horse being 1/16th Exmoor Pony and 1/16th Clydesdale and a good dose of Anglo Arab from his sire Tracey X. Last year Vicky and William competed at Luhmuhlen 4* coming 20th and this year achieved their highest ever placing at CIC3* coming 5th at Arville. Vicky has one horse competing at this level and last year contemplated selling William because the finances did not add up. William is not a natural dressage horse but he is fast and clever cross country so can often make up for the dressage.
Vicky has recently made the move to the South of France from Belgium and this blog will follow her as she prepares for Pau 4* and a leap into the unknown of life in France.
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Vicky Madsen and By Crikey at Luhmuhlen CCI4*
From Vicky:
I’m Vicky Madsen, and have recently moved to France, to my17th address in 29 years. I moved with Stefan, my husband of 5 years, and By Crikey, an 11 year old 4th generation homebred gelding who goes by the name of William. We’ve moved into the as-yet-unfinished Manoir de Caumont in South-West France, where we plan to set up an eventing training and production centre with B&B and fishing alongside. To make the challenge yet more exciting we plan on competing at Pau CCI**** at the end of October, just 7 and a half weeks away!
I have some provisional plans with Pau being 90km away to use it as a way of launching the business offering a coursewalk after the competition has taken place and possibly a drink at the lorry afterwards! Since being in France I have met some fascinating people including my neighbours who own a TB stud, a nutritionist, cranio-sacral therapist and a clinical psychologist who now runs courses coaching riders.
We are under no illusions that this will be easy (any of it…) and have been given dire warnings about French bureaucracy regarding everything from competition licences to minimum height fences round swimming pools. In addition as of this Thursday Stefan will forsake the sometimes-lucrative, if soul-destroying, world of IT project management to try and make this place work for all concerned.
At the Manoir there are several pure bred Arab horses in residence, who the owner would like to see leading useful lives as ridden horses in our clinics, and I’ve just added a couple of OTTBs (a 7yo gelding and a 4yo mare) to the pool too, a new experience for me but one I’m really looking forward to having seen the lovely big types they breed down this way. Despite the challenges we’ve already faced the memory of our last home in Belgium is fading fast, swept away by the glorious countryside here, so very fresh and clean, and framed by wide open skies and closed with glorious sunsets, each more wonderful than the last.
To find out more about Vicky, visit http://www.madsen-equestrian.
