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Ok so I think this may be taking my obsession with colour coordination to new heights! To match my GHE colours of harlequin pattern bottle green and white, I have found a tape to match! When this arrived the other day I got ridiculously excited about it, and couldn’t wait for the snow to melt so I could do a quick dry run to check it would be suitable. I love it! and when my belated Christmas present of a matching xc top arrives at the end of this month I think I might just burst with colour coordinated joy!…

This year is getting off to a great start because I have just submitted the first entry for my new column on Eventing Worldwide! EWW is a subscription site covering all aspects of eventing, there are course photos, videos, reports, reviews, competitions, regular columists and much more. If you want to join EWW it’s just £30 for a years membership, and having been a member since 2009 I would say it is definitly value for money. Before starting my 2010 column I had 3 articles published on EWW in 2009 each covering aspects of equestrianism that I have a good…

It seems only a few weeks ago since we had the last dusting of snow, and now it has come back with avengence! Just as I was getting excited about being able to use my 4×4 to navigate the snowy roads my 4 wheel drive went kaput! I have been parking near by, and walking up to the yard when the hill is impassable which is a little chilly, but I’m telling myself it’s all good exercise, and will help me to walk off all the chocolate log I munched last month! Ooooops! So as nothing can really be done…

Last night I was looking back through some old photos from my polo days and it reminded me about how I used to ride and lead the polo ponies. One day whilst exercising a string I ended up riding one pony and leading two more on each side! 5 ponies may sound like a handful, but they were so used to being worked like this that they were very well behaved, and it was great fun to take them out and canter round the pitches. So……..(can you see where this is going?) today I hacked out Soap and took Jack…

Several people I have asked recently to recommend a good equestrian book have suggested one called Celebrity Jumping Exercises compiled by Caroline Orme It is filled with SJ and XC jumping exercises submitted by professionals such as Pat Burgess, Matt Ryan, and Leslie Law. With the help of a few well timed hints I ended up unwraping this on Christmas day! (How on earth did Santa guess!?!) Today we attempted an exercise submitted by Yogi Breisner. To begin with you place 5 poles at bounce distances (10-12ft between each pole) in a straight line, and trot through them. These are…

Having missed out on our latest dressage competition due to the snow and ice on the steep hill from our yard making it too dangerous to drive on I was determined that it wasn’t going to stop me schooling at home aswell! I arrived at the yard on Thursday to find the menage full of even more lovely fluffy snow! The ground underneath wasn’t frozen so if I could clear the snow enough it would be fit to ride on. I car jacked my mother’s 4×4, attached the rake, attached a pallet to that for extra weight and got driving.…

Riding Jack over the past few weeks has been both uplifting and disappointing in equal measures, but yesterday we had a small breakthrough. Soap is very quick to react to light aids but Jack is the polar opposite. At present because he is not established in self carriage it takes A LOT of leg to get him to work properly. Despite going to the gym in an effort to get stronger and fitter I find that after 30mins schooling him I am pooped!…but then I found my spurs! I had totally forgotten I had a pair of spurs as wearing…

I couldn’t resist! It is Christmas after all!…

Jack is back in regular work now that the issues he had with his feet (which were a result of the long time he spent on box rest) have finally been sorted, so work has begun in ernest to turn him into an event horse! In prep for a dressage competition we have next week I hired the indoor school at the same venue and took him there for some schooling. The last time he went out was May and he came out the trailer at that show in a muck sweat and quivering like a leaf! It took about…

In a bid to ride in the daylight and not get drenched, frozen or blown clean out of the saddle by gale force winds my friend and I decided it was time to hire a local indoor arena for an hour of uninterrupted schooling. We both felt very smug as we entered the indoor and the heavens opened, and 1 hour later still dry and having had a productive session we agreed it was an ingenious plan of ours, so we booked in for another session! Soap did some lovely flatwork he’s really got the hang of working more over…