2011 The Best Bits and Pics.

A career highlight for me 4th at the British 4 year old Eventing Championships. I rode my gorgeous Hartpury Take It 2 The Top(Monty because of all the T's in his name) I bought him out of the field as a 2 year old. He was foot perfect the entire day. Can you spot Jackie Skelton deep in thought as I clear the final XC fence. We are sure she is thinking "I wonder if he is for sale?" Since then we have people ringing up to buy him and the answer is no! Photos all by Graham who has been a bit unwell over Xmas, hope you are feeling better very soon Graham.

Learning points of the pony-Ledbury Junior Pony Club Camp. Take It 2 The Top main arena at Gatcombe and below taking a rest with Man Friday waking him up!

Here are my favourite memories of 2011. In brief....

Coaching Mil Esling and Just Jake at the Grass Roots Badminton Horse Trials.
Hartpury Take It 2 the Top - 2nd Homme House, 7th Gatcombe BYEH, 4th British Champs.

Hartpury Top Gun- 6th Longleat & Homme House, top ten in every BYEH class entered.

Trefeinon Icon-3rd Somerford, 20th after SJ at Houghton cic3*** and we were on TV!

Man Friday- Surprised us every time out gaining 45 foundation points with only a half year membership!
Ants rare breed Thuringham Chickens win at a big Championship Show, beating the gentleman who imported them 15 years ago, Ant came home buzzing with his success.

Sirens screamed and lights flashed.....

I bought Anthony's 10 yr old niece, Lizzy, a beautiful showjump for Christmas. My plan was to deliver it on Christmas morning, so it would be on her lawn when she opened her curtains, I guessed about 6 am would be perfect.

However I was so worked up about my job as Santa's Little Helper that at 2 am I was wide awake worrying about oversleeping etc etc.

So I decided to do the deed there and then at 2 am. Her house is only a mile from us and the jump was already loaded in my car so off I went. She lives in a little Cul De Sac with about 50 houses side by side with open plan front lawns.

I parked outside and oh so carefully closed the car door and crept about unloading onto the lawn. It was pitch black and I worked by feel, guessing where to step over the prickly rose garden as I carried the poles and wings. All the surrounding houses were in darkness, it was scary what if they woke up and looked out the window. My knees were shaking, I felt a bit sick and my heart seemed to be beating faster than in any Eventing start box.

As I was silently putting the last but one cup in, suddenly a siren screamed and about 20 orange lights starting flashing on a car parked opposite. I almost had a heart attack, I rammed the final cup in place, put the poles on wonky and ran to my car, before I was arrested for being a thief in reverse!

It was odd because the siren was a house alarm on the main road about 200 yards from the car that had started flashing! Also the flashing car belonged to house no 4, the exact same house where I was born!!!

When I got home I was in such a state I still couldn't sleep, I told Ant my story and he laughed lots! As I lay awake worrying, I began to wonder if I had put the jump on the correct lawn, my friend Kat Jones lives right next door, she also has a horse. What if I had put it on her lawn by mistake!!!!

Phew. Next morning all was well, Lizzy was the envy of her street with her new Show Jump.
I felt a bit silly as the Rose Garden I had carefully stepped over about ten times had been removed over 5 years ago!!!!

No idea about all the alarms, a minor earth tremor or perhaps the real Santa.......

Christmas Eve

Anthony and I are invited for Christmas lunch at Bakers Farm with my parents and family. The table was all ready when I called round today, as you can see my Mum loves Christmas.

My youngstock taken this morning, Hartpury Twilight, Paint it 2 The Limit and Rif Raf The Dragon - in her xmas hat! You can only see the ear of Crunchie.



Sunrise early on a quiet Christmas Eve morning, a welcome sight after gale force winds shook several trees down yesterday.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

P.S. Louise and her 4 year old went super today so she is still in one piece for her Christmas celebrations.

British Eventing Magazine

Its here and the BE calender and all the BE dates and first lot of schedules 2012 are in there, Eeeeeek now that's better than Christmas. Although I do remember when I was 8 years old (pre ponies)being so excited about Santa arriving that my sister, Anna, and I opened all our presents at 3 am. After that Santa always locked all our presents in the lounge.

Take It 2 The Top is progressing well, Mika is having a few days off to allow a loose milk tooth to fall out, Top Gun and Icon both want to be out competing and are bored with no shows to go to.

Tomorrow I am off to help Louise Calverley get her young horse back into work. At 4 years old this is the first real youngster Louise has trained, he is called Arleys Champagne Charlie and is super talented. He has only had 4 weeks off and so we will lunge him first and then hopefully he won't be cold backed and Louise can give him a quick ten mins ridden work in the school.
I am feeling the pressure however as Louise is host to her family for Xmas dinner on Sunday so its up to me to ensure shes not bucked off!

The Last Shows before Xmas

A chilly and hectic weekend. Ant went off to a 2 day chicken show at Stafford on Saturday. This for me meant helping him at 6 am with putting 18 chickens of varying shapes and sizes into appropriate size boxes and then fitting them all into the back of his small 4 wheel drive truck. There was only just enough room for his picnic. Ant had spent all week washing and preparing the birds for the show.
Next after waving Ant off with lots of good luck, I mucked out 5 stables and rode Icon + Top Gun, then loaded 3 yr old Mika onto the lorry to take him to his first ever show. This was a walk and trot test and he behaved perfectly to come 3rd. Look at the snow on the hills!!!
Home quick in order to be teaching 4 hours of pony club flatwork and show jumping from 12.30.
Gasp! Next home to feed and muck out 5 stables, feed, cook tea and sleep. Ant had a good day with a winning Lemon Cuckoo Pekin cockerel.
Sunday was less busy, I took Top Gun to Hartpury British Showjumping. He jumped 2 double clears and is really feeling more and more balanced. My sponsors http://www.payrollsuk.com/ came to watch and feed him polos...bribery works every time!
I was home early and so I caught Take It 2 the Top and rode him for the first time in almost 3 months. He is so lovely and behaved beautifully, I just want Christmas to be over and all the Eventing to start, is that called having lots to look forward to, or wishing my life away?

Amazing Mika and the Mysterious Wolf Tooth

Mika is a little sweetheart, he has been hacking around Castlemorton Common, he just goes anywhere without question, its a real treat to ride a bold and brave 3 year old with a wise and sensible attitude. He was even chased by a loose crazy dog first time out hacking on his own, he spooked left, about 6 inches!!!!

My only blip has been persuading him to accept a contact, so I checked his mouth. There was a lump on his gum right where the bit lay. So I booked him in for wolf tooth removal even though he has had them out already....both of them. The vet was really surprised to see us back for more wolf teeth! A rogue bit of root must have hidden itself and regrown, it took an hour to get it out, it was beastly, tiny and sharp as a needle, poor lad it must have felt like having a splinter of glass stuck in his mouth.

Photos of lovely little Mika still to follow. But here is an old 13 sec clip of Mika as a foal, with his fiercely protective mum Butterfly, she had 5 coloured foals in a row, all foaled on her own in the field, photographing them was like trying to capture a pic of the Rarest White Rhino.....difficult and dangerous if she didn't know you!!!

BSJA Coaches Conference Hartpury

This was a day I have been looking forward to. I was lucky it was on my doorstep as coaches had come from as far as Devon and Scotland to take part. The trainers were Nial Quirk and Di Lampard both renowned international riders and coaches. Nial warmed the Hartpury Academy riders up on the flat. I have seen Nials coaching riders before so much of this was reinforcing my coaching skills. He trains the riders to ride the horses truly forward and as supple as is possible. One of the riders seemed to misunderstand at first the instruction to get her horse more supple and kept bending her horse to the left and right by moving the bit back and forth in her horses mouth causing his head to swing from side to side. Nial was quick to correct her, she was an easy pupil to train as she soon stopped the habit and we watched her horses way of going improve in front of our eyes.
Nial used the leg yield in a new way I had not seen before, to help supple the horses and he also reminded us how important it is to control the horses hind leg on a turn in order to have more power from behind. If the horse is supple he can stretch to jump and have more scope to jump a bigger fence successfully.
Once the horses were able to shorten and lengthen in canter and were supple, Di Lampard took over. She used exercises I use myself already, poles to improve the canter and to encourage the rider to use their seat not their hand to control the stride length. Di then moved this on to jumping a course with related distances, turns and changing direction.
It was a fascinating day, they used basic methods that I already use and no tricks or poles in weird places, horses were trained correctly with good basic work on the flat and over fences.
Christmas-If you are thinking of buying charity cards this xmas try looking at http://www.swhp.co.uk/ its a horse charity based in Monmouth, they also have some lovely rescue horses and ponies looking for knowledgeable loan homes.

Up On The Roof

We have a tree growing in our barn gutter so I had to go up on the roof to remove it. While I was up there I cleaned out all the dead leaves and mended a broken light. I was having fun but it was quite scary when it came to getting back down.



Top Gun jumped in the 1.05m at Hartpury BSJA today, this was his first time at this height and he jumped well with only 2 down. I then took him back in for a schooling round and he jumped clear. I felt he was better doing that rather than going into the next class which was bigger at 1.10m.



Amazing Mika (3 yrs old) is going really well and is now ready for a little outing to a small show. He is very pony like but is also bold, brave and willful, Ant has been in stitches watching us swerve past the 2nd part of some very tiny doubles! Mmmmm, Mika it seems has a clever pony brain too!

Icon is back in work, hes fat and very unfit, its hard to imagine him jumping higher than 3 ft!