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In between my lessons I always try to ‘do my homework’ and work on what we have been achieving in our lessons back at home. I am taking both boys for a lesson this weekend so in preparation I have upped their schooling this week so they are ready to strut their stuff on Sunday. Soap is really getting the hang of being a dressage pony, and little Dustry is just so much fun to school. I love bringing on baby horses because they are a blank canvass and I get such a thrill out of teaching them even the most simple basics. The…

As well as collecting all things dark green I also like to pick up the odd horsey book. I snoop around car boot sales, charity shops, and junk shops looking for vintage equestrian publications. I love reading old fashioned books on training and competing because they hold some real training gems, and also some very funny outdated approaches to horsemanship.  I have scanned in a few of my faves below and some I found last weekend in a junk shop but resisted as they weren’t quite up to the ‘GHE Library’ standard! Happy browsing 🙂

It’s my personal mission to colour coordinate as much of my riding gear as possible, at first it just happened by accident but now it has turned into a small obsession! I find myself scouting the high street, eBay, and various catalogues for dark green items to add to my collection so imagine my excitement when I found some dark green gloves on eBay! I quickly bought them and was patting myself on the back for finding such perfect cheap gloves, that is until they arrived… The gloves I found were golf gloves and not being a big golf buff myself I…

Soap and I made the short 20min drive to do some local dressage yesterday and entered Prelim 7 and 10. This month I am trying to do as much dressage and sjing as poss so that when we enter another BE event in Sept we will have made some progress in the coloured pole department as that is what’s keeping us out of the BE ribbons! The warm up went well and I was happy after half an hour that he was sufficiently soft and attentive and ready for his test. We walked to the indoor and waited by the…

After attempting this event last month only to be thwarted by Soap’s self harming (see this post if you have a strong stomach!) I was really excited to be finally on our way to compete in the ex-racehorse only BE90 section at Ascott-Under-Wychwood. I’ve never been to A-U-W before so had no idea what to expect but was really pleased to see a good undulating xc course, fairly flat dressage arenas, and a nice big show jumping ring. We arrived at the dressage warm up fairly early and I mooched about working Soap long and low and getting him swinging…

I have to say I feel very lucky to live so close to such a brilliant event like Barbury. When I was younger competing my old tbx and thinking about affiliating (back when it was BHTA not BE!)  it was competitions such as Penton, Savernake, and Tidworth that made me want to event. I used to plead with my mother to let me have a day off school to go and see the top riders of their day go round these events, and I felt inspired by them and the fact that this kind of top class competition venue was right on…

Since late 2009 I have been fortunate enough to be sponsored by Kan Teq body protectors. The Kan body protector is revolutionary, it’s designed specifically for women, and is made using special  ‘smart foam’ that absorbs the force of the  impact so that your body doesn’t! Wendy from Kan created the product from scratch and I think it’s a real triumph in equestrian safety innovation. I love my Kan and having tried and tested mine fully (yes that means falling off!) I would never swap to a different make of body protector because in my opinion they just don’t offer the same level of…

So after 16 days ‘off games’ Soap can be ridden again. His stitches came out today and the wound is looking really good, it has healed nice and neatly and hopefully shouldn’t leave too much of a scar. Whilst he couldn’t be ridden I spent my time running, tidying, cleaning, and cycling and it’s a real relief to have my horse back because I’m exhausted! Thankfully the cut was in a fairly convenient location and doesn’t come into contact with the bridle, although I will be leaving his flash off for a week or so just in case. So it…

Well they say things happen in 3’s and that’s definitely the case here at GHE towers! Soap was on day 3 of his r and r as a result of his DIY face lift when Jack also managed to injure himself! Somehow Jack has cut the inside of his off hind, requiring 7 staples and a few days box rest. Box resting both of them next door to each other has kept them fairly calm, but I am sincerely glad that they are now both able to be turned out for the final part of their recovery because otherwise they would have…

Well today Soap and I were entered for Ascott-Under-Wychwood BE90 in the retrained racehorse section and I was really excited about competing against other ex-racers, but sadly this happened… 🙁 Poor little Soap had somehow this morning sliced into his jaw whilst turned out in the field. I have walked every fence line and scoured the paddock for sharp objects but so far I haven’t found any clues as to how or what he injured himself on. My usual vet was away on holiday so the emergency vet came out and treated him. Whilst cleaning out the wound he probed…