In December, we bid a very sad farewell to Radish, who was sold to Boyd Martin. While I was saddened to see Radish go, it is exciting that he is going to such a brilliant rider, where he can continue his career and hopefully make an appearance on a USA Championship Team in the not too distant future.
Radish has been a pleasure to produce up the grades. I found him in France as a 5-year-old for the Ace of Spades Syndicate, and he oozed star quality from the beginning. He was a constant joker, although a very lovable one, who did everything with a smile (or cheeky grin!) on his face.
He found everything funny, and the challenge to begin with was to get him to concentrate on his work, as he found everything incredibly easy. Physically incredibly talented, he was super mobile and flexible but needed time to grow into himself and control his huge movement and jump.
We achieved some good results as a 7-year-old, including 2nd at Millstreet CCI2L, but he really came into his own this year as an 8-year-old. We had just finished 3rd in our seasonal Intermediate debut when I smashed my arm two weeks later and put myself out for the season.
Huge thanks go to Laura Collett for stepping in and doing a brilliant job with him while I was injured and notching up three wins, including two at the International level.
I was really looking forward to stepping him up to 4-star this year, and it is one of the hardest parts of our sport selling the horses we love. Still, it is also a business and a brilliant sale to a top 5-star rider, one that I hope will be a great success.
I truly believe he has all the blood, movement, and jump to excel at the top of our sport, and I will watch with pride (and a bit of envy!) when he hopefully reaches the top level with Boyd. I wish him and his new owners the very best of luck.
