Well, a few things have changed since my last blog. My sickness and generally feeling a little worse for wear was down to expecting our first child and we can now announce, having had our first scan, that tiny feet will be gracing us with their presence in June 2016!
This has slowed down my training and competing over the last month but not enough to stop! We headed to Sheepgate three day show in the middle of November with fantastic success.
I took Felix (Jazzed Up), owned by the Milners, to complete his Novice winter qualification and try to qualify him for the Elementary too. Although very green at this level, he was outstanding, winning all his classes with plus 70% scores! We also qualified for the Elementary music too.
Olivia Whitelaw took Amigo and she did her first few music tests on him, improving her percentage in each test and gaining qualification points for the regionals.
I am really pleased to welcome Rhett Bird to the yard every two weeks now which has made such a difference to all of my horses in only three sessions, because one a month just wasn’t enough to move forward now that Bodyguard and I are both in new territory working towards Grand Prix.
I had two brilliant lessons on both occasions this month and Anna Thiele enjoyed great lessons and improvements on Amigo.
Olivia and Amigo were selected to go to Swallowfields GB Progress Squad camp at the end of the month and enjoyed training and theory sessions, helping to build their partnership. The videos from this weekend looked great.
I was very kindly asked to ride at the judges’ conference at Oakridge on Felix and Bodyguard. This conference was open to all judges looking at the horse’s way of going, scales of training and riders position through all the levels.
Although we had agreed to ride at Novice level on Felix and Prix St Georges and Inter 1 level on Bodyguard, once we had warmed up, Kim Ratcliffe, who was running the seminar, decided that Felix would be looked at for Medium level and Bodyguard towards Grand Prix, much to my surprise.
We have just started the more advanced work with Felix, as he is such a quick learner and although only 12 months under saddle he just gets stronger and better every day and showed some lovely work towards Medium and Advanced Medium, including lots of ‘unrequired’ changes!
Bodyguard was very happy to be out and showing off. He started brilliantly and showed steps towards piaffe and passage and although this made him quite hot to ride, he still showed off our work towards his one-time changes and his ability to really sit in his pirouette work.
Alex Jo Parsons came over for five days of intensive winter training to work on the FEI Tests with Cassie, ready for the Premier Leagues next year. Alex was brilliant at also helping ride all the other ponies and kept the girls very busy jumping on and off various ponies and horses throughout the week she was here.
Having already proved herself as a very successful BYRDS rider, she has brought Cassie on from just under saddle to Medium FEI tests in only 10 months and is already showing serious potential for aiming towards an International in 2016.
Alex and Anna worked together with Cassie just establishing his half passes in both directions in trot and canter and then she ran through lots of test movements so I was able to help her gain as many test marks as possible, as too often you see marks thrown away for inaccuracies and this is one of my own pet hates.
I also worked on the more advanced work with Felix, with Alex taking a turn in the saddle and I think it is fair to say she enjoyed riding lots of changes and the feeling of trotting on air that Felix gives.
Although still eligible for ponies, we also want a back-up plan for Juniors as well, especially as I will be off for a few months around June and unfortunately Anna goes back to Germany then too. Alex is going to be busy!