It’s often that the horses who challenge you, and drive you a little crazy, are the ones that you grow most fond of.
For Pryde’s sponsored rider Elizabeth Welch, or Libby, that’s the case with her beloved mare, Mayfield Frizzante.
Frizzante, like the sparkling water.
Frizzante came into Libby’s life originally arriving as a show jumper for one of her clients. But she quickly showed her personality and power, becoming a little too much for her owner.
Libby’s daughter took to the challenge and fell for Frizzante, riding her all the way through to Grand Prix. Libby rode her during the week, and it was here that her love for Frizzante grew, as she began to understand her better.
“She was challenging. She could be spooky, she could be naughty. But when she was on your team, she was a really great competitor,” Welch said.
Frizzante wasn’t the standout of all the horses Libby has ridden, but she captured her heart more than she thought possible.
When Libby grew more interested in Working Equitation, she thought it would be a great challenge to push Frizzante and see what she was capable of. To Libby's surprise, she took to it “like a duck to water”.
“It was strange because I thought she was going to be naughty and spooky and silly, but it was so amazing to see her engage in working equitation.”
Frizzante reminded Libby of the Lusitano horses from Portugal she adores so much. Horses she believes are full of power and soul. A power which she describes as addictive.
“She was like an ever ready battery, never resting and never waiting. She’s just a keen being.”
That resilience was shaken during a bad storm, when Frizzante got trapped in her stable. As Frizzante began to struggle with her eating, Libby swapped her onto Pryde’s EasiRide and EasiResult to help get her back on track, continuing a relationship that backs much further.
“We’ve been using Pryde’s for 15 years now. I’ve never even had to send a bag back. I’ve found Pryde’s the most consistent. We use such a big variety, but we have a big variety of horses.
For Libby, though, it’s the constant questions about how she gets her horses looking so good that tell her the product works.
“One of the most frequently asked questions we get asked is: How do your horses look so good? And the answer is because we feed Pryde’s.”
These days, Frizzante spends her retirement as the queen of the paddock, mainly because she refuses to share with too many others. Libby visits her 19-year-old mare twice a day to feed her and change her rugs, though the visits still make her emotional.
She’d had so much hope for a big future for Frizzante in working equitation and believed the pair could go far. Unfortunately, Frizzante developed some issues with her hind legs, and her days are now spent in the paddock rather than the arena.
The trait that stands out most about Frizzante is her loyalty. Not to everyone, but unmistakably to her.
“You know, she never really liked that many people in her life, but she’s always come up to me. She’s a very loyal horse.”
It’s that loyalty Libby comes back to when she talks about what Frizzante means to her.
“I always felt like you could go to battle with her and you would probably come out the other end.”
Asked to describe Frizzante in one word, Libby doesn't need to search for an answer. Complicated.
“She’s always been complicated. But I think that's why I like her.”