Posts Written By Chloë

Dustry’s jumping education has not progressed as fast as a typical (issue free, non raced) horse, and we (my instructor Amanda Brewer and I) have spent a long time re-schooling and developing his way of going on the flat in order to lay strong foundations for his jumping training. Now that he has successfully been out and about to a few little show-jumping events and taken that all in his stride we are beginning to work on improving his technique with more technical questions, such as grid work. I packed in 2 lessons over the Easter weekend and the 2nd one we…

2 weeks ago we went to Sparsholt for some BD action, but sadly things did not go very well! The great British weather decided that Saturday 16th March was probably the best day to unleash as much weather as possible on the south west! We arrived and it was one of those moments where you think ‘this could well be cancelled, I’ll just go to the secretary to check….’ but nope! it was going ahead. To cut a long story short we were both drowned within moments of getting out of the lorry, had a horrid warm up in torrential…

Getting up at 5.45am to go and ride a dressage test in torrential rain, get a dismal mark, become soaked from head to toe in the process, then have an hours drive back home, sort the horse out, clean the lorry, finally get back into the warm and dry only to realise that your previously Daz white competition breeches are now filthy!….is all part of the fun right?…. 😉 Wet horse, rider and gear I can deal with but trying to keep my competition breeches whiter than white in these conditions is near enough impossible. It rained so hard that…

All the time whilst training and trying to develop a blank canvas of a horse into a competition animal it seems like you are always searching for the next step, always aiming for more, and better. Then one day it’s like *click* and another piece of the puzzle falls into place. That raw and un-ready creature you were riding a few weeks ago suddenly grows up over night and is more educated and knowledgeable than before. It’s not magic though, it’s not to do with the phases of the moon, or the feng shui of your stable it’s down to hours in the saddle and darned hard work! I…

Living in the heart of ‘racing country’ it’s hard not to get wrapped up in the hype that surrounds big racing fixtures such as Cheltenham festival, and I’m not adverse to the odd flutter on Paddy Power myself when I’ve been given a ‘hot tip’! Although if left to my own devices picking a race horse because it looks like it could be re-schooled into a nice eventer is not always the best method when it comes to choosing winners 😉 I do think that racing in general gets a pretty bad press, and the physical and mental condition that many…

At the beginning of this year I sent my sponsors an email asking if there was anything I could do to help them in return for all the great support they have given me over the years. Angie from Mountain Horse came back to me and said ‘well actually there is something you could do….’ Fast-forward a few weeks and the day arrived for Dustry and I to be rookie models in a photo shoot for Mountain Horse!!!! Angie asked if I could find another rider, horse, and suitable location for the shoot, and after posting on facebook looking for…

I took D for his 2nd time at a little SJing competition today and I knew it would be a bit of a big ask because due to work and weather he has had very little work in the last 7 days, so things were set to be exciting! We arrived and the warm up was packed with tiny ponies,and shouty mothers but we had to just get on with it. D found this all very exciting and as a result we had lots of bucking and one rather spectacular rear (neckstrap worthy!) but actually he may have been on to something…

So the snow has stopped play, and the horses are pretty much confined to barracks. Dustry DOES NOT like limited turn out, and so to let him stretch his legs today for a bit, I turned him out in the arena whilst I sorted his box ready for the evening. Here is a video just to show how exciting he finds snow, he loves it so much he just has to shove his face right into it! snow facial! After letting him blow off some steam, I gave him a good grooming all over, then tucked him up for the…

After a VERY cold grid work lesson yesterday I was really not relishing the prospect of a Sunday morning 6am start in order to take D to his first ever show jumping competition, so it was with many layers of clothing, and a glove box full of ‘lorry snacks’ that D and I set off for West Wilts Equestrian Centre’s mini unaffiliated show jumping. Driving through the early morning darkness I consoled myself with a snickers and radio 4 for company as I had not managed to persuade a single soul to accompany me, I wonder why? was it the…

So I thought it was about time I did a little update on how Dustry has been getting on with his Atlanta Gumbits, his ‘secret weapon’. I started using these treats back in June 2012 (click here to read the original blog) because he had developed a habit of scrunching his bit in time with his movement! As much as this shows he has an obvious musical flair, it doesn’t bode well during a dressage test when this sort of thing will be marked down, and penalised as ‘tension’. His teeth and mouth are all in tip top order but for some…