SARAH HIGGINS grew up on her mother's yard in Chester where juggling horses and school became everyday life. Sarah had many successes at this time in the dressage world when she secured the ride on Ian Woodhead's young dressage pony, Gigolo. Whilst Sarah and Gigolo were 16 and 6 years old respectively they won Saumur CDIP on the way to winning team Bronze at the Pony European Championships in Jaszkowo, Poland. Since then Sarah became a feature on the Young Rider squad competing successfully in France, Belgium, Germany and Ireland where she won the Irish National Championships.
Over the last 5 years since finishing young riders, Sarah has cemented her reputation for producing young horses with a number of successful horses and results at various young dressage horse championships. Sarah's horse, Delicata, was 2nd at the National 6yo Championships at Hickstead and is now ready to start campaigning at PSG at the age of 8 having this year won the medium section at the Northern Regional Championships. Sarah also rides the talented dressage stallion, Franklyn Sugar, also ready to compete at PSG. When Sarah isn't riding and training her dressage horses, she helps and trains other dressage and event riders including Alex Hua Tian and Sam Ecroyd (who was 8th at the eventing Junior Europeans 2014). Sarah is the youngest person in the country to hold her UKCC Level 3 qualification for Dressage Training and is also training to become a List 3a judge. |
ALEX HUA TIAN first came into the eventing limelight when he qualified four horses for his home Championships at the 2008 Beijing Olympics at the age of 18. Based at that time with his long term trainer, Lucinda Fredericks. Alex was the youngest ever eventer to compete at the Olympics and the first ever from China catching the imagination of the equestrian world and Chinese public.
Since then Alex has been quietly building his base of horses and supporters with whom he has qualified for WEG in Kentucky 2010, won his first 3* and was first on the individual waitlist for London 2012. Since joining forces with Sarah at Pinfold Stables, Alex has had his best season to date qualifying for and completing the World Games in Normandy on Harbour Pilot C, an individual Silver Medal at the Asian Games (Incheon, Korea) on Temujin and 8th at the World Young Horse Championships on Don Geniro. Competing for China provides advantages not only for Alex but also his owners in terms of accessibility to International Competitions and Championships. Alex has an exciting team of horses aiming for next year's Olympic qualifiers and also a wonderful bunch of young horses developing for the future. |