Posts Written On May 2009

Mattingley has to be one of my favourite events, and it seems we never fail to have a lovely day there whatever the result. I had late times with a big gap between dressage and SJ in which to walk the XC so at midday we set off from home. Soap warmed up really nicely for the dressage, the last 7 weeks works on his canter is definitly filtering through to all paces as he felt much more balanced and straight. Walking around the edge of the arena before the bell I asked him into trot and he squeaked and…

Well this week just gets better and better! Frances from Hoplands Equestrian Centre got back in touch after I initially emailed her at the start of the year to offer me sponsorship in the form of free use of all the facilities at Hoplands until 2010! Eeeeeeke! excited is an understatement! It seems she has been keeping an eye on the blog and my antics, and decided that even though they couldn’t sponsor me financially, free use of their for hire facilities would be a great way to help me as a local rider progress this season, and I whole…

Despite the crazy winds and horizontal rain on Sunday I took Soap to some local dressage at Larkhill. Most of our warm up was done with both of us overbent trying to shelter from the weather! Soap did a very sweet test, and I noticed a huge improvement in the rhythm and balance of his canter as a result of all the SJ training we have been doing. His halt and centre lines weren’t straight as he just wanted to swing his quarters into the wind and his free rein walk was pretty nonexistent as he just tucked his head…

Word of my blog has been spreading, and it seems even a few top eventers have read the odd GHE post! Completely out of the blue Joanna from Robert Stevens Eventing got in touch to offer me a free SJ lesson with Robert himself! After reading a few of my event reports they thought that a lesson with Robert would be really beneficial to our SJ training. click images to enlarge To start the lesson Robert wanted to see Soap move and agreed with Rosie Moss that his canter is too laid back, and not active enough. We worked on…

Unfortunately I can’t make it to Badminton this year but thanks to their wonderful website I can listen to Badminton FM and currently am tuned into the dressage commentry coverage. The repartee between Carl Hester, and Pammy Hutton is hillarious, they are not at all competitive! Tomorrow I have planned my day around spending several hours watching the XC from the comfort of my sofa! Wish I was there to soak up the atmosphere and do a little shopping, but watching it on TV will have to do, can’t wait for the first horse on the course!

I’m one of those people who always say ‘Oh I never win anything’ so this year I decided to do something about it.  I figure that you can’t win if you don’t enter so I made it my 2009 new years resolution to enter more prize winning competitions, online, by post, and on the back of cereal packets! My persistance has paid off because on Tuesday this letter arrived telling me I had won a free BE day ticket for 2009! I entered this competition in the Horse & Hound and thought if I won I could use the ticket…

If there is a tack shop pin board within a 30 mile radius of me then it has to have an Equine Premium flyer on it! To help my sponsors I am distributing their flyers and leaflets at all the horsey places I visit. I usually end up buying something if I step foot inside a tack shop so people seem more than happy for me to pin up a flyer, it’s when I then proceed to take photos of it that I get the odd funny look!

Yesterday was Jack’s first dressage competition, a walk and trot test and Prelim 1 at a local low key venue. He took some persuading to get up from the field as he was sunbathing, but we plaited up, loaded up, and set off. For Jack’s first few outings the empahsis will be on good behaviour rather than results, so that we build a good foundation for the future. He came out the box sweaty, and quivering like a leaf so I walked and grazed him in hand for 25mins till he settled. He warmed up nicely for his 1st test.…