"Well here we are again… another year gone and once again perching atop the precipice of the beginning of another manic season! Some point to stupidity, others a healthy dose of denial, but whatever the reason, it really is astounding how the shows manage to spring up on us so! However, we’re raring to go, and in just over three weeks will open our gates for the beginning of the 2010 Season, our 50th Anniversary no less, and I hope that you will once again follow this blog and enjoy all the inside info, thrills, spills, tears, and downright hilarity of an equestrian event organiser’s office.

So as the first marquees are erected and the sponsors’ boards dragged out of hibernation our most chuckle-inducing stories of this week have been: the charming gentleman tasked with the I-can’t-think-of-anything-I’d-like-to-do-in-the-world-less- job of emptying the sanitary bins on the showground, stood in the office, mouth-agape stunned at the veritable frenzy of activity as the ladies in showing furiously stuffed and sent thousands of schedules. After several minutes of this staring, he turned to leave and said sympathetically ‘crikey, wouldn’t want your job!’ I mean I know being a showing secretary has its moments, but seriously?!?

We’d just about stopped laughing when a very nice lady phoned to enquire about the electric packs we now require all stallions to have. On a serious note, this has been a point of discussion across many shows, and we have decided that it really is the best course of action to take to ensure the welfare of all horses. A small strand of electric wire is strung up at the very top of the stable wall, and prevents stallions from trying to get over their stable wall to ‘talk to’ the horse next door. Anyway, as you can imagine, as with the introduction of any new regulation we have had rather a few phone calls… It wasn’t until the very end of a conversation that Lizzie had with a rather concerned and reluctant lady that she had to agree that she didn’t think it was entirely necessary in this case! The lady in question had omitted to mention at the beginning of the call that she was competing in the miniatures and that her stallion was only about a foot tall! Even stood on its back legs, the said stallion would only reach half way up our stable walls.

Time to sign-off for this week, and actually get on with some of this organisation of which I type, particularly as everyone else has just run out of the office squeaking… not a spider for once, rather, the Hickstead book has just arrived. Hoorah. After a wonderful winter of interviews and compiling stories (not to mention the furiously competitive Bunn-sister proof reading and resultant red pen scribbling… I would like to take this time to point out that I was absolutely 100% in the lead until I was sabotaged with a kind bottle of wine to accompany my reading which resulted in several pages with not one mistake spotted!) Alan Smith’s fabulous new book, Hickstead: A Golden Celebration, is finally here. Jam-packed full of anecdotes from the world’s most famous riders, and a complete history of Hickstead and every competition we’ve ever hosted, it is going to be the must-have read of the summer. Oh dear, I’m not sure how good this is for office productivity levels; judging by the fact that even whilst I’ve been typing this most of the office staff have managed to rip a copy open, discard all jobs in hand and plant nose firmly in book, I fear that this is going to be like the year the last Harry Potter book came out all over again…"