Posts Written By Chloë

Jack is doing really well now he’s in full time work, he’s mainly being hacked with the odd schooling session craftily thrown in to prevent him from getting bored and going stuffy in the arena. He has recently had a few Bowen treatments which seem to have made a huge difference in softening him up, and showing him that it is possible to bend your neck, and not use it as a stiff plank-like rudder! Riding him is a constant learning curve, having been very heavily handled in the past and never having been taught the foundations of proper schooling…

After Munstead BE90 I called out my physio to see Soap as I was sure he wasn’t right, and she identified that he had put himself out behind, he was treated and my trainer Amanda Brewer and I monitored his movement very carefully in our next few lessons and were happy that he had made a full recovery, and Larkhill was a go go! We had day before dressage and Soap did a cracking test, it felt like his best yet, really consistent, no freak outs, and very accurate. I was really pleased with his performance, and even more so when…

Now that the clocks have changed and the days are longer I have time to juggle riding all 3 horses around work so Dustry is now stabled at night, and is very pleased to have haylage on tap and a big straw bed to snooze on. He is much more chilled after a winter off, and I think the break has done his brain, and body the world of good. I have been doing a little bit of lunging in preparation for getting on board, and he has been impeccably behaved. He responds very well to voice commands although he…

Today we set off to Munstead another new event to me, and despite all the recent rain the ground had held up really well. I warmed up for dressage giving Soap a good 45mins to warm in. During the warm up I noticed he did a few things that I thought didn’t feel quite right, but assumed I could put that down to freshness after a week of light work because of the recent torrential weather. We went in for our test and he tensed up which had a dramatic affect on his paces, tight, hollow, and not as well balanced as…

It’s taken several months of right clicking, scanning, saving, typing, photo-shopping, uploading, downloading, and chewing on pens but it’s here! I really hope you like the new site, and would love to hear your feed back. A MASSIVE thank you has to go out to Steve and Hannah my sponsors from Equine Adverts who also run SJK Designs and helped design and produce the mega new GHE 2010! There are more exciting developments coming soon to GHE so watch this space, but for now I am off for a lie down in a darkened room, and don’t want to see…

It seems like a decade since we cantered through the finishing flags at MK3DE my last event of last season so I was excited, nervous, and just keen to get going again as we set off for Moreton BE90. I’m not sure why (I think because I have terrible geography skills, and thought it was miles away till I looked at a map!) but I have never entered Moreton before so was looking forward to competing at a new event. We arrived with time to walk the XC and as I picked up my number they informed me that times were running…

I was contacted a little while back by a reporter for HORSE Magazine to see if I would take part in an article they were doing on horses who had come back into work after breaking a leg. I agreed to do it and after the phone interview a freelance photographer turned up to take some accompanying shots. Jack thought he would make himself look nice for the pictures by getting absolutely covered in mud from top to toe! When the photographer arrived he was still drying off, but thankfully there was a bit of a breeze and he soon fluffed…

It seems like ages since I last went XC and recently we have really been cracking on with our dressage so it was a little treat for Soap and I to get out and about over some rustic fences for a change. I think he must have been having the same XC withdrawal feelings as me because he was brimming with enthusiasm and couldn’t wait to get started. This was supposed to be Jack’s first structured introduction to XC but because he is still getting used to his gel pads and I hadn’t been able to do as much prep as I wanted I took Soap…

Seeing as I’m in the process of giving the GHE website a facelift (watch this space it’s launching soon!) I thought it was only right that I extended the makeover to my kit. I have some very helpful friends who work for an embroidery company who have kindly taken my old tat and emblazoned it with the GHE logo, instantly making it very desirable! Soap looks hot to trot in his new GHE branded travel fleece, and when out and about if you spy this little logo scoot past on a saddle cloth, say ‘Hi’ because it’s me! If you have sponsors…

Last season to try and improve my performance I went down the route of having discipline specific lessons with instructors who specialised in that field. This did help in some areas and Soap’s short stay at ‘SJ Boot Camp’ really made a noticeable difference, but having separate lessons from 3 different people (so in affect 3 different points of view) I found it really hard to decipher the common themes between them all, and not get tangled up in knots when they were telling me conflicting instructions! So….this year I knew I needed to try a different method and started…