Arabella Clegg, 27-year-old semi- professional event rider.
Riding has always been in Arabellas genes, her mother was a show jumper and her father a bloodstock agent.
Growing up through the Old Berks pony club gave Arabella good grounding for the sport. Competing successfully in all disciplines and representing the branch regularly at the Pony Club championships before focusing solely on Eventing and becoming a British eventing member from the age of 14.
Arabella then went on to compete regularly on the junior circuit, having produced a horse she purchased as an unbroken four-year-old. As a combination, Arabella and Danse de Feu went on to be long listed for the Junior Europeans. In the years after they successfully competed at International level, at the age of 18, Arabella was the youngest competitor in the field at Tattersalls CCI***L, finishing in the top 20.
Since then Arabella has gone on to produce several horses from four or five year olds to national Advanced level.
Arabella has an exciting time ahead with her current string of three horses, ranging from a five year old to 11 year old.
Alongside Arabellas passion for riding, comes her love for writing. This came about having had a nasty riding accident in 2011, where Arabella was left in an induced coma for a number of days. When Arabella was allowed home to recover from a severe brain injury, she hit a very low point. It was thanks to her Mum and very loyal sponsor, Tim Wilkinson who helped her through this. Arabella wrote down how she was feeling, and this was the turning point to seeing light at the end of the tunnel.
Tim put an editor of a magazine in touch with Arabella and from there on her writing has continued. It started as a blog type article about Arabella in the past and present. From there Arabella has become a regular columnist for this magazine; Equestrian Life as well as writing for Horse and Hound, Eventing Worldwide, the Retraining of Racehorses and Haygain, covering event reports, sponsored riders, product testimonials and yard visits.
Arabella has been a user and fan of Haygain since 2017.
‘Having started using the HG600 machine back in December 2017, I have never looked back with the product and how it has transformed all my horses.
Initially it was purchased for one horse in particular who had always suffered from a dry cough whether he was stabled or turned out.
Shortly after changing to feeding steamed hay he stopped coughing and has been a generally much healthier horse since. As well as being able to improve his health and way of going, consequently he doesn’t struggle so much competing at the three star level because his lungs are able to work with a better functionality and higher capacity.
My other two horses have benefited greatly from the Haygain, as it is so easy to use and fits perfectly into my yard and routine, all my hay is steamed whether it’s being fed in the stable, field or when away competing. I now refuse to feed any unsteamed hay’.
I had my first taste of working for Haygain this year at Burghley Horse Trials as extra show staff, I had never done anything like this before but was keen to take on the task. A successful time was had there, and lots learnt about more of the products.
After Burghley I saw the job advertised with Haygain for the Customer Care Manager role, I thought what better position to apply for. Working for a product I 100% believe in and feel very strongly about for enhancing horses health whether they already suffer from a respiratory problem or just for good general maintenance to prolong a horses quality of life.
