February has been a busy and exciting month. Rocho and I have been to a couple of shows at Merrist wood. The first wasn’t great score wise, he was still placed, but it proved to be invaluable for training purposes as my trainer Eileen came to watch, and it gave us a great chance to see how to tackle the tension that he seems to get from the atmosphere of the arena at shows. We then spent a week training at home to get him really through and settled going past various objects near the school, and when I took him back he was much better- realising that the pot of flowers really wasn’t going to kill him!! We got 63.4% and 3rd place which leaves still plenty of room for improvement, but the comments I got were much more favourable and not a word about him being tense and hollow.
Another bit of exciting news is that the feed company Simple System Ltd has offered Rocho and I support by way of sponsorship. I am delighted to work with them and there will be a link to their website shortly. For now the site is www.simplesystem.co.uk Many thanks to Tim Warren and Jane Van Lennep for their help and support.
Things at Highbrook are going really well, and more and more liveries are coming in. The plans for the new indoor arena are going through as planned and we have great hopes for the construction to start soon. Natalie Parry (Highbrook’s yard manager) did her first point-to-point of the season on her beautiful black horse Glenny, and was delighted by the way he ran, and is training for another one in the near future. Clinics are now underway, approx one a month. Please email for details and dates.
February’s Top Training Tip
Work on your seat and position to gain a really strong, correct and effective position. It will take some hard work on the lunge without stirrups, but is of course worth it, and the only way to achieve a good position. Please get in touch if you would like to book a lunge lesson.
