"I am writing this in the half hour window I have in the morning before I have to go and pick the children up and all hell breaks loose again at 10am! 

I didn't think I was exciting enough to write a blog, but H&C have told me otherwise and persuaded me to give it ago. Do let me know if I bore you!

Olympia bound

My big news this week is that Mr President ('Rimmer') and I will be competing at Olympia. I found out I had got in by email and before I had even replied to say yes, the news was up two minutes later on the British Dressage website, so they must have presumed I would say yes, which of course I did.

But at the moment Mr P does not look like a grand prix horse. He is in the field and resembles a shaggy mule. He hates being clipped with a passion and actually squeals like a pig throughout, so if we weren’t going to Olympia I was hoping to get away with not clipping him this year. But the deed must be done now and I have three weeks to turn the ugly duckling into a swan.

I took him to Richard Davison’s yard to be shod yesterday (I have used Richard’s remedial farrier ever since Rimmer’s suspensory ligament injury in 2008) and I made him promise not to look at the hairy thing in the corner having his shoes done.

The children think Richard is “scaaaary” because he says hello to the horses but doesn’t talk to them. A squeak from one of them during a lesson can get daggers, so Simon very much has his work cut out there!

Geochemistry

Other than the more-than-fulltime job of getting the children through each day, my job is as a minewater geochemist. After all the coalmines closed, the groundwater pumps were turned off and the mines flooded, and the water became contaminated. Our job is to work out how to clean the water before it gets into the rivers and streams.

I’ve always kept up the day job (so to speak), which is why I've always classed myself as an amateur. I'm still working now, though a lot of it is from home and I just go into the office for meetings. The flexibility suits my generally hectic lifestyle!

Horses at home

We have six and a half horses at home at the moment (pregnant mare counts as one and a half!) including my three year old daughter Annabel’s 10hh black Shetland, and Simon and I are up at 5.50 each morning to get them done and exercised by 8am.

I can’t wait to see the Shetlands at Olympia, they are like Christmas come early. I’m always amazed by how much tinsel and sparkles they pile on them – if I put all that near any of my horses’ stables, they would eat the lot.   

A reformed character

The other horse I ride at the moment is Mr Hide. As in Jekyll and Hide. He is Hide because that’s the evil one. This horse has pushed us to the limit. We couldn t have sold him as no one would have bought him. He put Simon in hospital when he kicked him and has floored me six times, I’ve had some truly incredible bruises. Even the local farmers talked about ‘this nutty horse’.

When he was at his worst, i told Simon he had to go, even if it was to the knackers. After a particularly bad fall from him which stopped me riding for over a month, I didn’t even want to look at him.

Simon believed in him and got on him and hacked him for five months. I had nothing to do with him; I wouldn’t even turn him out in the field. But Simon was cunning and eventually got me down to the school. I finally got back on and since then we have grown closer and closer. He is instinctive like a mustang – act now think later. The journey this horse has come on is amazing; if you think the leap from prelim to grand prix is big, this horse has made an even bigger leap than that already.

He is now five and we have just qualified at medium. ‘Clyde’ will now trust me even if he is truly terrified. He came from the same yard as Mr P and I was hoping for a similar horse, but no! He is sharp as stink and neurotic as hell but we always said that if we could get past elementary without him killing us then he could go all the way to grand prix. He is now turning into a lovely horse – he has so much energy. This is one horse where YOU DO NOT KICK!

A champion in the making?

The other horses at home are youngsters and we have a broodmare in foal too. She is a Dutch harness mare and she’s in foal to Waldemar, the champion Dutch harness stallion.  

Hopefully she will have a colt as I think it would be the only Dutch harness stallion in the UK. Obviously he would have to have the right movement and temperament, but if he did, we would plan to keep him entire as I think the breed has so much to offer to the dressage world in terms of movement. They have a huge amount of cadence with really good hocks and high knee action. Or it could be a filly!

The mare has already had a foal by Donnerschwee. She’s now a yearling and is really fabulous – she has the ability to come up through the knee but has the grace of the dressage horse too.

She’s big and brown with hardly any white – mum has four whites and dad is black so I had ordered black with four white socks but it wasn’t to be. This time I’ve threatened Ancie and if the foal doesn’t have four whites, there’ll be trouble!

Dare to demo

The other thing going on at the moment is something that cropped up on the BD forums on a thread about who people would like to have a demo with. I never thought I would be of interest for that sort of thing as I just do what I do with my horses, and have never really thought about doing demos. I am no Carl but it’s an idea that’s been circulating. I’m not sure if I am brave enough to put myself and my horses out there (and pray they behave themselves!) but it might happen.

Anyway, I must go as I have to do the food shopping before picking up the children!”