Head down and working one's a*** off!

I am so sorry I have not written as much as I usually do currently all 6 horses are in work ( we have had 7 for last 2 weeks),  5 in competition (mixture of SJ, dressage and eventing) I am working towards my Pony Club B+ test, I am currently doing my UKCC level 1 coaching and I am learning / revising for my driving tests. As well as having a regular 6 clients to teach and another 5 horses to school. Social life / days off not really an option.

However after my session with Frances Goodman last week from Imagine Success I have had a little help with time management so fingers crossed I have now got my life under control!

So where are we at, well as you know we have have a bit of a disastrous start to the season with injuries and illness but all horses are better and in work, they are all competing apart from Danny and he restarts his season next week at West Wilts in the Open Novice and if that goes ok will be heading to Wellington to do the Open Intermediate U21.

Chilham Castle last weekend was a weekend of firsts: First 100 + for Hector and first placing of the season for him. First ever event for Boo. First 100 for Arabella and first place!

Arabella



Well after her awful illness, secondary infection of Peritonitis and prolonged stay in Arundel Equine Hospital this is an incredible story. It took her a while to get back to herself again but once on the road to recovery she came on in leaps and bounds (literally). She and I have been working quietly at home on her flat work, we had help with a lesson from Fiona Bigwood which helped me focus our training and to be honest I have had some incredible work from her but I didnt' expect it to come out at an event just yet! Chilham Castle was her first ever 100 class. Well she was certainly full of herself. 5 years old, 16'3 and and in season, to say she was a handful was a understatement! But when it mattered she got her brain in gear and pulled out an incredible 24 dressage (and there is still so much more to come there), clear SJ and clear XC with 2.4 time penalties. I never pushed her round for the time as she is young, just kept her in a rhythm. Incredibly she won her class. Such a great feeling when everything comes together and so so pleased for her owner Jill Chator.

Boo

Although Boo is the same age as Arabella she was started a year later in November, she is the dressage horse given to me by Fiona Bigwood that I am turning into an Eventer. Well we have been out and about doing some show jumping and gaining experience, she has been cross country hated ditches and drops in the beginning but we got there and she seems to have conquered that fear. So we took the plunge and put Boo into Chilham Castle for her first ever event. Erm dressage well lets put it this way, even to get to the arena was a challenge, she was so full of herself she found the tannoy very distracting, Arabella in season very distracting. The fact that I managed to stay on this very opinionated 17'1 warmblood, on the way to the warm up was a bit of a miracle. Anyway we managed to stay in the arena for the test, no we didn't do our best work and we came away with a dressage score of 41. (I have kept that one quiet from Fiona). Then all of a sudden she settled, was as quiet as a lamb as if she had been an event horse all her life and went and did a double clear in the sj and xc. In the end she was the better behaved of the two of them! I was absolutely thrilled she came 13th.

Hector

So we decided to take Hector up half a level to the 100 + to see how he would cope with the dressage and SJ, as it turned out he coped brilliantly. The novice dressage has a lot more movements and much more lateral work which he is used to doing at home and he seemed to be much more focused, the 1.10 metre showjumping was much better as he likes the challenge of the bigger jumps and although he had one down (the smallest on the course) he jumped beautifully. He then went on to do a beautiful clear XC, he took me to every jump and then finished by getting his first placing of the season. I was so so pleased with him. I think he he is nearly ready to do his first Novice.....

Jo

Jo is our schooling livery, he came to us a bit of an arrogant  14 year old chestnut, who refused to go in an outline and was crashing through jumps, his owners were unhappy about how he had been looked after and schooled in his previous place and he has turned into a the most gorgeous little horse that tries his heart out for you.  He now does a cracking dressage test and has been clear  SJ every time he has been out. He has been placed in some unaffiliated dressage and showjumping and is just about to do some eventing with Eliza his owner. I have been competing him SJ on a ticket and will be competing him in a few more competitions.



Jake

Jake is 22 and my Mum's horse, he is our horse of a life time and has come out of retirement. Mum has donned her dressage gear and taken him out to a couple of dressage competitions and in a couple of weeks he will be schooling Marcus Gorman (point to point jockey) round his first event in 30 years. The dressage lessons have been hilarious! No one tell Marcus but he is really quite good, Mum is worried he is going to get a better dressage score than her!

Mum and I before heading out to compete in different competitions on the same day