Jessie Kirby's Young Riders' Horse Windy de la Roche CMF Retired from Sport

Dressage

Great Britain

British young rider Jessie Kirby announced that her number one ride in the barn, Windy de la Roche, has been retired from competition sport.

Windy de la Roche CMF is a 12-year old Swiss warmblood mare by Sir Donnerhall out of Winona (by Walt Disney x Trapper). She is bred at the Swiss De La Roche broodfarm.

Dauphin, Blomgren, Froment

The dark bay mare was first trained and competed in Switzerland, making her show debut as a 4-year old in 2015. She showed at the national event in Deitingen, followed by a start in Gobet for her qualification for the 2015 Swiss Young Horse Championships in Avenches, where she finished 6th under Muriel Dauphin.

In October 2017 the 6-year old mare was sent to Germany to be trained by Swedish Anna Blomgren. The pair trained at home and rode in a freestyle to demonstrate de-sensitization at the 2018 Aachen Youngstar Days, but never competed together.

In June 2020 Windy was allocated to French rider Alizee Froment.

Jessie Kirby

In November 2020 Windy moved to Great Britain where she was matched to Jessie Kirby. She was to follow in the footsteps of her 2019-2020 junior horse Bella Amie (by Ronaldo x Haarlem), which she sold to Genevieve Visagie in Australia.

Kirby and Windy made their national show debut in July 2021 at Advanced Medium level at Fairoak Grange Equestrian Centre. Their CDI debut followed in October 2021 at Keysoe, where they posted 64.798% in the junior team test, 62.843% in the junior individual and then recovered in the freestyle with a fourth place on 70.750%.

In 2022 they won the Winter Regional Championship at Prestige Equestrian and moved to Young Riders level. At the CDI Keysoe in March 2022 they were sixth in the YR team test (66.912%) and fourth in the individual test (69.559%). After Keysoe they showed at the Winter Dressage Championships and were second at Advanced Medium with 70.09%

More than a year break from competition followed for Windy but she returned to the arena in May 2023 at Sparsholt. They went on a winning streak of five back-to-back PSG/YR tests. Their last show was in July 2023 in Hartpury.

Retirement

"2023, you’ve definitely been a hard year to swallow," Kirby took to Facebook. "From withdrawing from the MCI Europeans (Agente SB), Waving my baby Burlesque off to her perfect new home earlier in the year and waving Casper (Hocus Spocus), my longest partner in crime off to his amazing new home last week, And saying happy retirement to my beautiful queen Windy."

Kirby explained to Eurodressage that, "due to a reoccurring injury we made the best decision for Windy to retire her from the sport - she has two exciting rising 3-year olds (by ET) which Elevage de la Roche CMF have sent to me here in the UK - one by Valverde and one by Glamourdale - so the decision for Windy to have foals was an easy one!"

As Well de la Roche CMF

Kirby has a third "Swiss" iron in the fire: She has been competing the rising 8-year old As Well de la Roche CMF (by Ampere out of Patrik Kittel's 2018 WEG team horse Well Done de la Roche) since February 2023 at Medium and Advanced Medium level.

Her international show career seems on a pause as she wants to give As Well plenty of time to mature.

"Azzy is beginning his competition career now and will be out at PSG next year so the family of horses is exciting," said Jessie. "I hope he will be ready but he is only 7 so I will only compete at young riders if we confidently feel he is strong enough and is ready. This leaves me without a more experienced young rider horse for 2024 but does give me exciting horses for the future."