"I was a guinea pig for the first time last week at the National Judges Convention, having been very honoured to be asked. The convention was based solely on judging dressage to music and I took two horses, Wizard (Wurlizer) and Delboy (Headmore Delegate).

I was surprised at how nervous I was beforehand, but then again I was leaving myself open to criticism from two of our top judges, Judy Harvey and Andrew Gardner, in front of a packed crowd of judges and very keen British Dressage spectators. My first ‘test’ was a Prix St. George (PSG) test, but without the music to enable the judges to just mark the technical side and the choreography. Wizard went well and with no mistakes, that is until the collected walk! It was my fault as I had made him too hot and buzzy in the warm up so he thought he was doing the right thing by offering a piaffe. It was very good for the judges though as they had the discussion about whether a movement that is more difficult than the required standard was deliberate, obviously on this case it wasn’t!

I then had to jump straight on Delboy to run through my medium test trot work to music composed by the music expert, Ken Barnsley, so the judges could look at the interpretation of the music. Delboy was a little spooky and he didn’t like the loud beat of the music so there were a few mistakes, but the judges still got to the general idea of the music changing with the movements.

My final ‘test’ was a medium music test on Delboy, but to the wrong music. This was to enable the judges to concentrate on the music marks. I made a test to some Disney music that I had previously used for a little Irish bread horse that I had competed, Celtic Rose (Kelly). Obviously, with Kelly being a Connemara/ thoroughbred and Delboy being a warmblood, the music did not fit him or suit him. It was very difficult to keep a straight face when I was cantering Del round to biddidy boddidy boo from Cinderella! It worked well however and gave the judges a lot to discuss!

I really enjoyed being a guinea pig, even though it was very nerve wracking, and I felt very privileged to be asked. Hopefully I’ll get to do it again sometime in the future!"