"First of all, a big thank you to H&C for giving me the opportunity to share the ups and downs of setting up the biggest and probably most complicated project I have ever attempted - The Aspire Equestrian Riding Academy. The site went live on Monday the 2nd August, but it all began almost two years ago with a very unrealistic idea on a few A4 pages.

Humble beginnings

The main concept was pretty simple: To provide training services to grassroots riders and enthusiasts starting their adventure with the sport, whether they had their own horse(s) or not. The services were a scaled down version of a system used by top equestrian athletes; i.e. a comprehensive and holistic structure aimed at improving physical and mental aspects of performance at all levels.

In other words, I wanted to create a service that any rider, whether new to the sport or already in it, could look at and think: “Aha! so this is how I can go from bouncing around in the rising trot to my first affiliated competition.”

Hurdles to overcome

The first problem was finding a yard as an important objective always was to keep the Academy relatively mobile around the South East and possibly beyond so it is important to find good yards for the riders. Eventually, I would love to find a yard where we could base the Academy fully but I will tell you more about that in the future.

Who would do the teaching and training? From the very beginning my idea was to encourage other freelance instructors to take part. This was for two main reasons:

1. We all learn differently and click with different ways of training. I figured that if I managed to find instructors/coaches teaching with the similar main goal but using their own methods I could create a more educational environment for riders.

2. Simple division of work. I know my strong and weak points as a teacher and instructor and wanted to find others with more or different skills, knowledge and experience.

In theory...

That was all great in theory but not so easy in practice. I found that most instructors thought the idea was fabulous - in principle. However, as I explained the importance of planning the training, personalising it and offering holistic coaching many couldn't be bothered to do the work behind the scenes, some thought I was mad and that I would never be able to make it work. The snow and horrid winter came and I almost gave up.

But then I thought perhaps I should really try to go for it when I went to one of my training days with Anna Ross-Davies. It's a long story but Anna kindly invited me to learn from her and I've been fitting in some shadow-training days now and then. Whether Anna thought I was mad wanting to pursue the Academy idea or whether she truly thought it was great, she was so encouraging that I thought, hell if one of the top riders thought it could work perhaps I wasn't that mad after all.

What next?

To make it work like I wanted it to work I needed an interesting mix of instructors and riders. I needed a Chiropractor or Physiotherapist who was also a reasonably good rider. Someone else who could offer sports massage to horses. Another someone well versed in the British Horse Society's examination system. Friendly venues. Good horses. All this while also freelancing as normal to make my living and pay the bills. A year ago it seemed almost impossible. Read my next blog to find out more about the ins and outs of bringing this project to life..."