JABEENA Maslin and Valerie Bradshaw have received prestigious national awards with their ex-racehorses, Quel Ange and Magic Powers.

Maslin, a horse owner from Beaminster, and Bradshaw, a rider from Holwell, were presented with the South Essex Insurance Brokers and Retraining of Racehorses’ (RoR) Elite Performances Awards for ex-racehorses at the Breeders Dinner and Awards Ceremony at the Grange Hotel in London.

The Elite Performance Awards offer a prize fund of £2,500 to the winner and £500 to the runner-up, donated by RoR.

The awards provide a focus for ex-racehorses competing in the disciplines of eventing, dressage, show jumping, endurance and showing.

Maslin’s ex-racehorse, Quel Ange, won the SEIB & RoR Elite Performance Award for show jumping and is ridden by Kathryn Ellison. Quel Ange was in training with Somerset trainer, Ron Hodges, he ran on the flat and was placed a couple of times.

After he retired from the racecourse, event rider Sophie Hawke took him on and evented him up to intermediate level. Maslin then purchased him to take show jumping.

She said “He is an absolute fireball and wins everything, Kathryn rides him brilliantly. He is still a stallion – I have been forbidden by several judges from having him cut as he has such a phenomenal jump.”

Maslin trains the Olympic British Modern Pentathlon team in show jumping and Quel Ange was one of the horses used for the show jumping phase of the Modern Pentathlon at the London Olympics.

He was ridden by competitors from Latvia and Poland and completed his two rounds successfully. Quel Ange is currently competing at 1.25m and Maslin hopes he will start competing at 1.30 and 1.40m this year.

Runners-up in the SEIB and RoR Elite Performance Award for Endurance were Val Bradshaw and her own, Magic Powers. Magic Powers ran several times on the flat without distinction.

Bradshaw has ridden the horse since he was a yearling in training.

She said: “At the age of three, Magic Powers suffered a broken pelvis and this had a dramatic effect on his future career. He came back into training as a four year-old at the height of 15.2hh and had a try at hurdling.

“After several attempts it was apparent this was not his game and he was entered into the Ascot sale catalogue. I offered to buy him prior to the sales and his owners agreed. I put him in a field for a year and he grew to 16.2hh.”

The pair started competing in endurance riding in 1995 and in his first three outings as a novice he managed to claim three grade one results. After a gap of several years, Bradshaw then went back to endurance in 2012.

Now aged 18, Magic Powers earned 1,363 trophy points for the season and the competitive distance covered by him is 772 km to date. To find out more about the ROR and SEIB Elite Performance Awards visit racehorse2 ridinghorse.co.uk or ror.org.uk