“We’ve had lovely feedback on the Carlisle and Gleneagles demonstrations. The first demo is always a bit of a concern with logistics, especially as Monty was riding the Mendip Stud’s horse, Copy, for the first time and Pie’s spectacular run in has to be carefully managed because there always someone late getting to their seat who wants to wander right in the pathway of his ‘Simply the Best’ entrance.

Apart from the core team, every night we have a wonderful team of volunteer helpers who make the whole thing happen. At Gleneagles, Monty said the crew assembling Pie’s TREC obstacles in 60 seconds flat were the most efficient group he’d ever seen in his life! Someone might say, “Well that’s not about horsemanship” but hold on: communication, timing, teamwork, observation, focus – doesn’t that ring a bell somewhere?

A new and fascinating part of the demonstrations was the introduction of audible heart rate monitors. For the first time ever it is now possible for the audience to hear the horse’s heart rate as Monty works with the horse. Now the audience can fully appreciate how the horse’s anticipation of a fearful object, is worse than facing up to the fear itself.

As usual our brilliant (multi-tasking) Intelligent Horsemanship film crew, Simon Palmer of www.into-the-lens.com and Katie Gormley were there to capture all the key moments for H&C TV. Katie, our brilliant editor, is busy working right now on ‘Misty the pony, terrified of washing lines’ to have on H&C soon.

Monty and I are so pleased to meet so many H&C viewers at the demonstrations and look forward to meeting more of you in the coming weeks. See the venues on my website by clicking the link in the ‘On the Web’ box below my blog. www.intelligenthorsemanship.co.uk

On my next blog I want to tell you all about how the two Irish horses I recently bought are coming along. It’s not been all plain sailing I can tell you that!”