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I had a great SJ lesson today with Liz Peerless. She set up an exercise (see image below) Intially it was just 3 trot poles between each jump stand, which then built to canter poles, and eventually 2 uprights each with a canter pole in front. The aim is to (on the left rein) come round to the first fence, land and circle 10m to the  left, then jump the 2nd fence. This is repeated on the right rein. It really made Soap work from his hocks on the circle and it stopped him from becoming stronger and faster after…

As a result of a well suppoted post on H&H I have knocked up a directory of small private and large professional venues at which you can stable your horse when competing away from home. Its success is dependant on people’s submisisons so if you have a spare box or bed to rent then get in touch join the boxandbed facebook group here

We set off for another lesson with Liz today. Practise since our last lesson 2 weeks ago had been rudely interuppted by all the poxy snow we had, so I had only managed to exercise Soap 4/12 days, but he was on good form. We started with trot/canter poles on a circle, moving them to raise one end. This is to get him to think about where he is putting his legs not just blunder on through, as he needs to start thinking more about his job. We moved on to a x pole bounce, the video below shows how…

The nice folks at Youngs Animal Feeds couldn’t offer me any sponsorship, but they did send me some vouchers for their product “Stamina Mix” It’s designed for horses who are in medium to hard work so should be ideal for Soap this eventing season. He gets rather heated by sugar beet so is on a very fibre heavy diet. Stamina Mix is a combination of chopped fibre and cooked flakes so fingers crossed it will provide the right balance to give him energy but still remain sane, I will let you know if it brings any exciting results!!! Thank You…

There was a knock at the door and a delivery driver holding a big brown box covered in Mountain Horse tape! With snow on the ground and presents being delivered it must be Christmas! The box was packed full of lovely products, breeches, socks, hat, gloves, scarf, and a great red jacket. I dressed myself up to the nines in all my new clobber, and headed up the yard. Below is one of the only pictures where Soap has his ears forward, he is a very difficult subject! It took some persuading to convince him that I had no treats…

I just read my friends facebook status which said that she was watching “The Whitaker Family Master Class” which made me think I’d like to watch that, the more sj tips the better! I Googled it and saw it was on Horse & Country TV on Sky. I had forgotten that Sky had this channel because we have freeview, but guess what?….you can watch it for free online! This is a fantastic resource for expert advice, and inspiration I can’t believe my luck. Thank you Sky!

I have just logged off the Ann Allen page having placed my Intro entry for Tweseldown on 15th March! I used my March ballot sticker so fingers crossed we get in. Eeeeeeeeeeeeke I’m so excited about this season, it seems to have been a long time coming round again. Below is a pic of Soap and I last year at the Tweseldown unaff’ ODE, he looks pretty stylish in this pic, but you should have seen the other one which we didn’t buy!

I have been promoting my blog online and offline, virally and via mail outs for the last 3 months. I have had just under 1000 visits in the last week from places as far a field as Indianapolis, Argentina, Munich, Bucharest, and even Zagreb! Today I got my first offer of sponsorship, and needless to say I was a little overexcited! I had a lovely email from Angie at Mountain Horse who has offered me some fab Mountain Horse products. I can’t wait to get the goodies and try them out, and I was really buoyed up by the comments…

The abscess has been poulticed and medicated into submisison and Soap now has a full compliment of shoes back on 🙂 I am really looking forward to my jumping lesson this weekend with Liz Peerless, will have to get a few schooling sessions in this week after work as he has had 4 days off but he is pretty fit so I’m sure he will be fine. Will try and get some pics of the lesson and post them asap

With Soap off games due to his abscess I turned my attention to my feed shed which was getting a little out of control. Above are some pics of the make over. His foot is looking much better after, poultices, hot tubbing with saline solution, and hydrogen peroxide, fingers crossed we can get a shoe back on this week.