April has just flown by so far for me, I am delighted to say that I’ve been nicely busy at Highbrook, teaching clients old and new. Natalie has been welcoming liveries in for short stay training with me, and long term boxes are filling up fast. Nicky Brown’s lovely mare made some cracking progress while she was with us, and we welcomed Karen and her beautifulblack mare Weiser to the yard as a permenant livery, training of both horse and rider is progressing well.
Rocho has been going really well, and I have been concientiously keeping up my Michael Peace training in conjunction with normal stuff. The spooking is much better, and he has been getting mid to late 60 per cent scores again, much to my relief - and not a mention of tension or a related comment!! Hopefully we can continue this progress and keep improving those scores!
A well done to Jenny Martin for gaining 65% in her second ever riding club elementry, and also to Kerry Dodd-Irwin for her 63% at Merrist Wood recently. Kerry has worked tirelessly since christmas on the lunge to completely re- learn and develop a classical dressage seat and position, she has been so dedicated and great to work with. I am so pleased all her hard work is paying off, and she is gaining the higher marks now- just goes to show it’s so valuable to work on the rider to generally improve the horses way of going.
My clinics are proving really popular I am delighted to say, the Solent Riding club and I had a lovely day at the beginning of the month, and I have a full day of people for my own clinic this saturday. Thankyou for all the people who booked in, i’m sure we’ll have a great day - even if it’s raining!( Indoor school on it’s way…) I will be organising one per month now, details of which are available if you fill out the web enquiry form. These clinics are great for new faces to come and meet me for assessment, one off help or a trial to see about regular sessions. All standards and abilities more than welcome! If you’re really lucky you may even get a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea!!!!
April’s Top Training Tip
If you suffer badly from nerves before your competitions, try to give yourself a bit of a pep talk and say to yourself that there is no reason for you to get stressed about what may or may not happen. Just remember you have nothing to lose by going out there and trying your best, you often get better results if you enjoy the whole thing and just let it flow!
