This season absolutely hasn’t gone to plan and there have been more hurdles this year than I’ve had in a long time. As well as that, we’ve had lots of changes – I think all for the better but trying them all out for the first time at a 2* isn’t always the wisest choice...

I started writing my end of season blog by going through blow by blow of what happened and then I realised that was both repetitive and very boring because most of you will have read my blogs or can go back and read them if you want to.

I normally feel upset that the se...

I decided to take both horses to Lions Tail to compete each day. I entered Chip in the 33km class on the Saturday and Nahdia in the 80km on Sunday.

Why would I bother to take Chip to a 30km when he obviously doesn’t ‘need’ to do it???... I’m very aware that I don’t want...

The aim of the year was to complete his 2* and he did that, in a big way!

After his super successful 1* in June I was really confident that he could do the distance because he felt so good at the end of the 80km. BUT a 120km is really so different to an 80km and of cour...

Hanslope was a bit of a ‘box ticking’ exercise for Nahdia. To help sell Nahdia we have been trying her out on the longer distances with a view to upgrading her to Advance and qualifying her for FEI classes. Due to the FEI qualification rule of needing a minimum of 12 m...

Writing these reports is tricky, what to include, where to start, how long to make it! Do people even care? I’m never sure but anyway here goes.

I’ll start at the logical beginning of the trip which saw my sister (number one crew) and I getting up at 5.30 to make our p...

Just a short five weeks ago Nahdia came into my life. With me for sales livery, I knew from day one I had to not let myself get attached. The first day I knew she would make a good endurance pony, pacing the fence at a canter for six hours straight!

Since then, she’s co...

Where to begin? Euston Park couldn’t have gone any better really. Many people know that to get this point has been quite the uphill battle with Chip. Missing his 1* in October last year due his idiocy and grazing his fetlock three days before, then missing his 1* in Ap...

The benefits of strength training in human endurance athletes is now widely reported. The research is clear that strength training has a positive impact on endurance exercise performance in terms of maximal power, exercise efficiency, improvement in lactate threshold a...

After Saturday’s fabulous dressage day I did have high hopes for Chip’s behaviour at Tilford as we scored our highest percentage yet and he was so calm and relaxed in the warm up which is a big improvement from the stress head that he was in October in the warm ups.

I c...