Sorry it has been a while since my last post. School work and horses have left me with almost no time to write about what I have been doing! Recently I’ve been doing lots of Dressage and arena eventing type events as well as training which have all been very beneficial both for my training and for Theo to get back into competing before the season starts for real.
I did a Baileys Winter series Jump Training a couple of weeks ago and it is something that I would highly recommend to anyone wanting to be coached in a real competition like atmosphere. For me particularly I find that Theo is great in my lessons because I am very relaxed but on competition days I have the tendency to tense up and worry him meaning we drop the odd pole. What was so useful about jump training was that I had competition nerves and I did make a few errors in the first round but that gave me the opportunity to stop and think what I did wrong as well as a BE accredited trainer telling me how to improve, meaning that the improvement in the second round was phenomenal. I gained skills which I will now use all through the season.
We went Cross Country schooling on the all weather surface at Aston le Walls. It I such a useful facility especially with the weather as it is because almost everywhere with a cross country course is closed! There is such a wide range of fence heights and caters for every ability. It was just perfect for me because this season I am moving up from BE90 to BE100 and it gave me the ability to pick and choose which fence heights I jumped as all are labelled with their level, we even jumped a few novice fences! Apart from dodging around trying not to hit anyone it was super but I can’t wait to get out on a grass course and go for a gallop!
Plan making and season planning is well under way. I’m getting very over excited and am really looking forward to eventing again. The issue though is this awful weather which has already caused so many cancellations. So the date when I first get out, I can’t be sure of at this stage! I am going on a fence judge training day next weekend so that I can fence judge lots in the season as I love to volunteer and put back into the sport which I think it’s very important.
All my training is making the season seem closer and I can’t wait for my first event!!