Summerhouse BS and BD

Took Hartpury Take It 2 The Top to Summerhouse on Tuesday to jump the 1.15 and the 1.20. We missed the heavy rain storms and the sun shone for the hour we were there. This is the first time he has jumped these bigger classes. He jumped really well in the 1.15 it feels so easy on him. In the 1.20 he had a few rails, I lost the canter on some of the turns and made it too hard work for him, but he remained bold and confident, very pleased with him as a jump off in a 1.20 would be around 1.25 to 1.30 which is as big as he will ever get eventing.

Today we went back to Summerhouse to get soaked riding a British Dressage Medium test. Hartpury Take It 2 The Top was contesting his first ever affiliated dressage competition. He scored 64% for 2nd place, which is fab seeing as I lost him marks for going wrong.
Hartpury Top Gun was just one mark behind him in 3rd place with 63%. We were competing in the open section as I was riding on a ticket, so our result was even more pleasing. I have purchased just a few BD tickets so I can do some medium tests in order to practise the movements required in FEI Eventing 2* tests.

Hartpury Twilight Sold :(

One of my friends Tom Searle has just bought my lovely 5 year old Hartpury Twilight. He was vetted last week and passed with flying colours including the dreaded X Rays, Tom has collected him today and is very excited about having such a lovely young horse. This winter I have been jumpingTwilight in BS classes winning a few £ and he's qualified for a regional final. He is a fabulous jumper and a beautiful mover, Toms a super rider so we can hope for great things for the new partnership.

I am feeling slightly sad but it means I can start on his younger brother Hartpury Top Gear (Jeremy) who is 3 this year and quite tall so needs breaking soon.

The money will come in useful too as I would love a course of show jumps on grass for summer schooling and maybe I will look out for another horse as my next project to being on.

Yesterday Top Gun and Take It 2 The Top jumped at Hartpury BS show. Top Gun jumped clear in the 1.05 and Take It 2 The Top had a rail in the newcomers jump off  but is feeling more balanced with each outing, this is due to lots of pole work and small fence exercises which I do at home with him and of course improving the flat work is helping enormously.

More Tears at Talland with Pammy Hutton

Dressage god Pammy Hutton had me in tears yet again. The lesson was fab, Monty's half pass in trot and canter on both reins this week got the comments "Good Stella, really good". I then asked Pammy to have a look at my medium canters and with her advice I think I have grasped what is really required in medium canter, I normally get 7 for this but would love 8, it can't be that difficult to get an 8 surely?! Pammy gave me some tips and lots of homework. We are also working on another movement but I am not telling you what that is until it's looking good. ;-)

Pammy has given me a special concession to join in staff lessons and made me promise to come again soon, as we are improving so quickly. She also said if I leave it for 12 months like I usually do she will charge me double :-0
I am wondering if I will stick out like a sore thumb in the staff lesson though, as they all look amazing when I watch their lessons.

She then said some really really nice stuff about the hard work I am putting in and Monty being a class horse and how impressed she was at our improvement in just two lessons, and she really meant it. That made me cry, how nice was that. Right now to work work work, we are going to be amazing and make Talland and Pammy proud of us :-)

Hartpury Take It 2 The Top video Arena Eventing at Weston Lawns

This is the first time I have been to Weston Lawns to compete in an Eventing class. It was a glorious sunny day and Monty jumped really well. His dressage felt a bit wobbly in both the Novice and the Intermediate but a good mark of 31 and a double clear gave him a 1st place in both classes. He still loses balance SJ although hes improved loads and its now only on the related distances involving a turn. I had a fab ride XC it felt so good to be riding competitively over ditches, steps, water jump and all the angles and skinnies. There was even an ABC combination of hay racks on a turn.

A huge thank you to my helper for the day Katherine who also took the below video.

Talland with Pammy Hutton and Ali Mills

A busy day training for Hartpury Take It 2 The Top and myself today ready for the fast approaching season.

I have been working on my sitting trot with lunge lessons with the brilliant Ali Mills, she is very sharp to correcting position faults and I have plenty. Since my last lesson with her I have worked hard on all the exercises riding Hartpury Top Gun, he is my quietest horse and is an absolute poppet trotting round my arena, while I do the equivalent of yoga on horse back!!! Ali lunged me on Tallands school horse Gordon, he's lovely. She was pleased with my progress and I think I am getting better slowly!!!

Next a lesson on Hartpury Take It 2 The Top with one of the worlds best Pammy Hutton. Scary stuff but I had lots of positive comments, I managed to turn right instead of left several times, or vica versa which always drives her crazy. She was however pleased with my attempt at shoulder in and when I rode half pass right she told Ant off for missing filming the best moment of the lesson. Luckily for the purpose of the video I was able to ride several more

of them to a reasonable standard that Pammy described as "very good"

She took lots of time and patience showing me how she uses certain lateral movements to train horses to do a correct flying change that is not late behind. We finished with one correct flying change and Ant didn't miss filming it so I have proof!!!

BS Hartpury and a Top Secret BE Meeting!!!

I had a unique day at Hartpury Show Jumping yesterday riding all 3 full brothers at the same show, it was especially unique as they were all born at Hartpury. Twilight was very excited by the occasion and jumped round rather quickly taking a rail down with him in the 1m with me trying to relax him all the way round! He has an incredible jump I have never sat on anything quite so athletic before. Top Gun jumped a super double clear in the 1m and Hartpury Take It 2 The Top won £15 in the 1.05 with a fast double clear. However this wound him up for the 1.10 when he got very strong and took out 2 rails. The courses seemed tiny however after jumping at Solihull on Wednesday.
Early this morning I set off for a meeting at BE HQ which had been organised to discuss long term strategies for British Eventing. I was looking forward to seeing the new HQ but on route I had a phone call to say there was a last minute change              

and the meeting would now be in a nearby farm shop. In anticipation of a posh setting I was more dressed for Alan Sugars board room than a farm shop!!!!
Luckily the farm shop had a very nice room prepared. See photo.
The meeting was really interesting, there was a selection of  BE members attending from different aspects of the sport. We discussed entries, prize money, relationship with unaffiliated events, balloting, withdrawals, start fees, the event calendar, entry methods, other ideas for competition opportunities within BE

and lots more. There were some really good ideas put forward, although I am biased as some of them were mine, the plans BE are considering are exciting and very positive for the sport.
There are still lots of decisions and work to be done, it's going to take a few years, but now I have heard some new ideas my impatient nature would like them implemented now!!

Show Jumping Solihull

Had a fab day at Solihull today. Hartpury Twilight 2nd in the 90 and he had just one rail down in the jump off in the 1m. He's a bit speedy, careful and very keen, hope he stays like that for XC. Jump offs BSJA usually go up 5-10 cm from the first round, today's 1m jump off was a decent 1.10 so it's encouraging Twilight is already very confident at BE novice show jumping height.

Hartpury Take It 2 The Top finished 2nd in the 1m, he felt absolutely amazing, he is loving jumping against the clock. It's not only lots of fun for us both but it's engaging his hocks and sharpening up his jump, he can be lazy and get very unbalanced show jumping, especially on related distances. But there was none of that today. He then jumped really well in the 1.10 which led on to a 1.20 jump off, it looked huge (I am rusty to jumping that big) but luckily on him it felt easy, still had 2 down though, one rider error and one when he jumped too big into the double and tipped the upright on the way out.

Both brothers have an enormous stride and collecting the stride to a normal horses distance is not natural for them. Twilight easily put 3 strides in a 4 stride distance today and it felt perfectly easy and natural. Will need to work on that to have all the required gears for XC riding.

There were already a fair few Eventers out with their string of horses, it was fab to see Louise Harwood out on her 4* horses Bit Of A Barney and Mr Potts. Fingers crossed Potts is heading for Badminton this year.

Dressage at Kings Equestrian Bromyard

I took along a new helper to this venue, Katherine, she is training to be a physiotherapist (eventually equine). Katherine is eager to learn everything about horse care, having not yet been lucky enough to have her own horse. She is a quick learner and it was lovely to have someone so interested and keen along with me. We allowed extra time in the morning so I could teach Katherine to plait and she did a really good job of Monty's rather bushy mane. I teased her that if she didn't do them well I would lose marks when the bands flew off and hit the judge in the eye!!!!

The weather was wet, windy and cold, yet there were lots of entries for all the classes. All my horses went much better than I could have ever expected. Hartpury Twilight contested his first Novice test finishing in 2nd place with an amazing 68%, he was beaten by his brother Hartpury Take It 2 The Top who won on 73%. Hartpury Take It 2 The Top and Hartpury Top Gun then both tried their first medium tests scoring 65% and and 66%. It was pleasing they both performed some super half pass and shoulder in work, with Top Gun gaining an incredible 8 for his extended trot.

The organisers had done a super job of presenting the arena, with pots of flowers round the edges and international type markers, all very posh. My medium tests were in a long arena and the arena party were incredibly quick at changing the markers around.

Very pleased my boys remained calm in the atmosphere of the indoor and in the wind and rain of the outdoor warm up, all fab experience for them. However I now feel like I have overdosed on dressage and now we need to detox and go jumping!

P.S. The judges eyesight remained intact as the plaits stayed firmly in place!