A recent trip to Kelsall Hill Farm Ride with me on Troy, Stacey on Archie and Phil on Sam.

Topper, Archie, Tyke and Troy show-jumping at Adlington last Sunday.

Topper and Troy have had some jumping practice this week on a rare day when our usually incredibly reliable arena wasn't frozen, flooded or snowed under! We challenged Topper by putting up a course of 1.10m and he really rose to it. No problems for Topper!

Troy did some gridwork to work a bit on his technique. He's rising 5 this year so his work will become gradually more demanding now.

Well here's a blast from the past! I found these pictures of when I used to compete at International level in Portugal with my horse Grenat de Langers (and a picture with a chestnut called Red). The ones with Grenat in the arena are from a Grand Prix class and the smaller ones on grass are from the Cascais Junior Championships where over the three days we finished 1st, 2nd and with 4 faults on the third day. Images are by Nuno Pragana at imagemedia.pt

First off there's Heath. He's still improving every week but his progress has evened out a bit and he does have his bad days so sometimes it's easy to feel frustrated and like you're not getting anywhere. On these days you just need to take a step back and take a look at how well he is actually doing. Saturday was one of those days. The weather wasn't on our side from the start with it being a bit gusty and showery but we added to that challenge by taking him somewhere he's not been before under saddle on his own, which is a big deal for Heath.
Following an altercation where Elaine was attacked by a tree branch and gave Heath a bit of a fright, Elaine rode Heath much of the way up before walking him back in hand as he was finding the whole thing a bit stressful but still taking it really well. We didn't want to leave him there as he hadn't really done enough, but he'd done well so we didn't want to put him in the chambon and make him work for however long. So we did something we've not done before - jumping! He seemed to really enjoy himself and had a bit of a play with it. As you can see, he's not too shabby at it either!

Managed to get two lessons in today at the farm before the heavens opened! Lynsey who part-loans Tyke and Gina who part-loans Spike both did really well, making a lot of progress and jumping bigger than they've done before.

Nina and I took our ponies to Somerford Park this weekend for some cross country fun. Hunting pro Nina led the way on Joseph because as you’ll see from my facial expressions in the pictures I’m not a huge fan of cross country – I like my fences to fall down! Luckily Buzz looked after me and both boys did great.

Jumping with the Gingers.

This is Archie, a young 14hh Welsh pony who as you can see is a very talented young man! He is owned by Stacey and I’ve been doing a bit of jump schooling with him. Only done a couple of session so far but he has already improved enormously so can’t wait to see how he progresses.

Made the most of the weather and the decent ground today by doing a bit of jumping with Tyke. Was good to see what he can do as not pushed him before but will be focusing more on building his confidence and technique over smaller fences. Good to know it’s there though!