“It's been a while since my last blog, I hadn't realised how long but we have been really busy and time seems to be flying by.

New ponies doing well

The last few weeks have been mostly taken up with the young horses. We have got a couple of new young ones (very nice ones so quite exciting) so a lot of time has been going in to them to try and get them ready to go out in public. Initially, we do a lot of work at home introducing narrow fences, jumping fillers and blocks and jumping fences on an angle to give them a bit of an idea of what is to come. I find that spending a bit of time doing this gives them a good basic education and then they are ready to go cross country schooling. I like to go schooling at Littleton Manor, as they have a great range of jumps and it gives the babies lots to look at but there are some smaller fences to get them confident as well.

How many times you have to go schooling before they are ready for an event is very dependent on each individual horse and we will be making a couple more visits before any entries go in but I am looking forward to getting my new ponies to their first event.

With two local events recently (Brightling and Iping) it was a good time to start a couple of lovely young horses that I have in to sell, A Copper Beech and Red Curran. They did their first BE100 at Brightling and were brilliant. The weather was atrocious but both boys behaved beautifully and plugged on through the driving rain to finish with good placings. The following week was Iping and thank goodness the weather was better and the boys were both placed again, so I was very pleased. It is really rewarding when you put in so much work and it all comes together when you get to the event. They are both headed to West Wilts this next week so hopefully the good progress will continue.

A fabulous Gatcombe.

As a bit of a contrast, we have just come back from a fabulous weekend at Gatcombe Park where I had Kings Gem (Gem) in the British Open Championships. This is one of my favourite events and has previously been a successful venue for me so is always a highlight in the calendar. This year turned out to be great as well with a very good eighth place in some very good company. Gem jumped a superb double clear and was amazing cross country. I really felt we were back on track after our tumble at Badminton and now feel ready for Burghley (fingers crossed!). Not only did she jump brilliantly but she was also very good in her dressage which is a very exciting breakthrough as it is no secret that this is the phase we find hardest. I was really pleased with her test and it was nice to be only a few marks behind the leaders after dressage. That was her last run before Burghley so Elodie has now put her back in her cotton wool casing and we are counting down the days.

We have got a manic couple of weeks coming up with three events this week (West Wilts, Aston le Walls and Chilham Castle) then off to France for a week to a new event for me, Haras du Pin, with Billy on Air, Wolfgang Penelope and Dinky Inky.

Lots to look forward to and lots to do, so until next time have a look at my training videos and keep practicing on those ponies.”