My clients have been braving the weather to get their horses out and about competing! Siobhan Coultrip went to Merrist Wood and came home with third place in Novice 27 with 70% and fourth place in Novice 30 with 67.3%. Well done to Katie Patrick for coming joint first in the Junior Dressage Qualifier for the Royal Windsor BRC Championships. All that hard work on their dressage position becoming more functional was so worth it. My young horse Delboy behaved beautifully at his first two day training course at the TTT with Andrew Murphy. This was also his first time of staying away from home and he took it all in his stride (although I am very glad I had my partner James lead me round the block on the first day and my lovely client Mary Mounsey on the second day). I am very excited about a new venture I am doing with Clare Turner from Skylands Equestrian Centre, a Combined Training Series for those aspiring to compete from BE80 to 2*.
I am so proud of my show jumper slowly being converted to dressage client Emily Farrar for taking her four year old Inka to his first dressage competition and bringing me back a test sheet with one 8 and seven 7's. I had an amazing two days training with Stephen Clarke. Delboy has made so much progress since he came into full work three months ago and now we believe he is strong enough to take more weight back in the canter to start to balance his extravagant pace (as opposed to bowling on around the arena like the "charge of the light brigade!"). We then had our first hack around the block by ourselves! Delboy had a few days off after Stephen and then the super star did his home work brilliantly in the canter. It became more engaged, slower but with much more time in the air. Less speed means my eyes don't water so much thankfully! He could not have done any better so had a few more days off. He is a big young boy who is giving me his all and I need him to stay happy and sound in the mind and body to make sure the Grand Prix goal is obtainable.
