Posts Written By Chloë

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.…

I’m an active member of the Horse & Hound forum. Forum members often get asked to contribute opinions and anecdotes for H&H’s sister publication HORSE Magazine. I gave them my thoughts about collecting ring etiquette for an article they were working on, and they actually put my quote in this weeks edition! Fame at last! ha ha ha 🙂

To tidy up our SJing I am having lessons with SJer Rosie Moss and last night was our 3rd lesson. Bit wise we took out his Happy Mouth Pelham and tried Soap in a KK Ultra Universal, which is a very pricey bit! I had brought along a whole selection of other bits but typically Soap went best in the expensive one! Even though he is fit and well muscled for fast work and finds XC a breeze he lacks the muscle to maintain an active canter and SJ for any length of time. To build up this muscle I…

We trecked off to Bovignton BE90 today, an event I have never done before. When we arrived I collected my number and took a quick glance at my section, lots of low 30’s dressage marks eeeke! I thought that’s either a generous judge or some stiff competition! Turns out it was the latter as despite what I thought was a nice 35 maybe 36 mark test we got 38 🙁 A little harsh I think, and some rather picky comments on my sheet for an intro, but hey ho… Sj warm up was horrid, hard and on a hill. We…

My brilliant farrier just came out and put Soap’s shoe back on. No abscess was found, and he is 100% sound so we have put it down to a little soreness from treading on a flint. So we are Bovington bound with just 4 days of prep prior to the event. I have a SJ lesson that was booked with Rosie Moss for tomorrow so that can now go ahead. I hope this little ‘hoof holiday’ won’t have done him any harm, so we are hoping for a dressage mark somewhere between our last 2 scores 37 and 31. I…

Typical! I plan an exciting weekend for Soap and I and he goes lame 🙁 He has a suspected abscess in his near fore. My farrier investigated for an abscess, corn or a bruise but couldn’t find anything except tenderness on the inside of the foot. We are treating it as an abscess and poulticing to see if that draws anything out, but there is a possibility that he is just a little sore after treading on some flints whilst out hacking. Poor old Soap now has 5 days on box rest before he can (fingers crossed) have a shoe…

I booked a lesson with local SJer Rosie Moss on Tuesday. I really wanted a pure SJer to give us their point of view on Soap, my competition warm-up and how I ride a course. We started off doing our normal warm up as we would at an event, and she watched. After a total of about about 25mins warm up I said that we would then usually jump the 3 warm up fences a max of twice each, and then that was it, she looked a bit surprised! She said it was all too relaxed and that I needed…

On Friday I dressage stewarded for Larkhill ODE. I thought it would be nice to give something back, and it was. I watched 30 or more BE90 tests so well and truely knew the test for my section on Sat and chatted to other lovely stewards, event organisers, and competitors, and was treated to an Easter egg for my troubles. After last weekends stilted and disappointing dressage I really focused on letting Soap go forwards and produce bigger bolder paces, and it worked despite him trying to stare at the XC start all the way through his test we got…