During these strange times, some of us are separated from the people we love, and we couldn’t resist sharing a little story that has come our way
Earlier this week we were contacted by Heather Runciman, whose daughter Laura is celebrating her 21st birthday today
“With no eventing taking place and you seem to be posting clips of cross country rounds from previous events, I wonder if you might be able to post a clip of one of my daughter’s cross country rounds?” said Heather “I only ask this as it is Laura’s 21st birthday on Wednesday 22nd April and I’m trying to make her birthday as special as possible because we’re on lockdown in the Scottish Borders and Laura’s working on an event yard near Lockeridge, Wiltshire. This would help to make a bad situation a little bit more bearable!”
Of course, we couldn’t resist, especially when we watched Laura’s lovely cross country video riding Soviet Star at Richmond (2) 2017. Richmond Equestrian Centre hosts two of our favourite British Eventing competitions each year, but have had terrible bad luck with Strangles forcing the cancellation of their September event last year and the first of their 2020 events, which should have been taking place on 9th and 10th May, cancelled due to Covid-19
Soviet Star (aka Miss Annie), a 16h Irish Sport Horse, came to Laura in March 2014 as a six-year-old and they started to compete at BE90 later that year, moving up to Novice level together.
“They’ve had the usual ups and downs along the way but a few highlights are that they were part of the Scotland BE100 U18 team that came fourth at the U18 championships at Weston Park in 2015 and they qualified and competed twice at the Mitsubishi Motors Cup BE100 in 2016 and 2017” Heather told us
In between finishing school and University Laura worked for a season as Hunt Groom for the Lauderdale Hunt followed by a summer season working for Charlotte Agnew in Gloucestershire before heading to Stirling University and during her second year there she started working part time for Daniel Scott.
Like many horsey people, Laura decided that University wasn’t for her and that she wanted to continue working with horses so when a job opportunity came up working for Andrew Nicholson, she took it (who wouldn’t!) and she has been working for Andrew in Wiltshire since June 2019.
It is a fabulous job but being in lock down due to Covid-19 means that Laura will not be able to celebrate her 21st birthday with family and close friends
“She’s such a family girl and I know she’ll find it hard not being with us on her big day but what can we do!” says Heather “Hopefully this will help lift her mood and stop her missing us at home!”
We hope so too and we’re sure you’ll all join us in wishing Laura a very happy 21st Birthday
