"Before the main competition season gets underway, we have been trying to get as many of my qualifications on the younger horses done and dusted so I can then, hopefully, just concentrate on Wizard (Wurlizer) coming out at Grand Prix and Headmore Delegate (Del) coming out at small tour.

I also want to move Bracks (Headmore Boadicia) up to advanced medium but Mum (and she’s the boss after all) wanted me to qualify her at elementary and medium first so we took her to Quob on 2 March for an elementary and a medium. She warmed up well for the elementary and we were very pleased with her test, it flowed well and it felt easy for her. She scored 70% to win the class, completing her qualification at elementary. We then had a medium test and although she warmed up well, she was a bit tired in the test so went a little bit wobbly and had a few mistakes, keeping the mark down just below 67%, finishing third but adding a few more points towards her qualification.

Grumpy Wiz heads in the right direction

We then took Wiz to Sparsholt to do the pick your own class. We rode at Inter II, as it was our first outing at a affiliated big tour and I wasn’t brave enough to try a Grand Prix. He started off a bit grumpy in the warm up but it really made me ride him and he was super by the time we went into the arena. I was very pleased with our test; the piaffe and canter pirouettes were much better than they had been in the arena, and we got a few eights as well. There is still some room for improvement but we are definitely going the right way. We scored 66.58% and finished fifth in a massive class. So I have now had my first affiliated outing at big tour and we survived, so roll on the summer and premier leagues."