March started off very well, my lovely Askeaton was back in the ring. Claudia and I set off to Parwood on the 1st March with Riri, BE Khalissy, Askeaton and Hurricane Heidi. Although it was a very cold day it was sunny and it managed not to rain which was a huge relief. Riri and Claudia jumped very well in the British Novice, and Khalissy jumped well in the Discovery. We then had quite a long wait before jumping Askeaton and Heidi in the Newcomers which had very few entries. Askeaton was extremely over-excited to be at a show, and Parwood has a pretty exciting indoor warm-up, however she jumped an immaculate clear round, Heidi finished the day with a good round, so all in all a very worthwhile day.

On the Wednesday we had a visit from the lovely Camilla Zanna who runs Premier Performance CZ, a supplement company who have developed products using Nitric Oxide pathways to deliver nutrients more efficiently. We had been using their Calming Cookies as an excellent alternative to sedatives while getting Askeaton back to work from box rest, and had been really amazed with the excellent results. We are now using Calming Powder, Moody Mare and Stomach Maintenance on my horses, and seeing excellent results. I can’t wait to see how their Gastro Plus Extend will help the horses when they are travelling to International Shows.

Thursday was my birthday, surprisingly, given the time of year, this is historically a sunny day, but not this year, it was forecast to be rainy, and they were bang on. With my 58 year old total optimism about the British weather I thought it couldn’t really be that bad and set off for Coombelands. So by 10.00 am on my birthday I had already got my lovely new lorry stuck and towed out by a tractor. Thank you Ben Parks for being so good natured. Once we were safely parked outside Ben’s house I ventured out on Khalissy who very kindly jumped a lovely round in the Discovery.

I thought maybe it wasn’t so bad, and climbed onto Askeaton to jump the Newcomers, she was incredibly fresh, squeaking and hopping about the whole way from the lorry to the warm-up, and by the time I went into the ring I was a slippery as a piece of soap. We survived to do a clear round, but it wasn’t pretty as she was jumping huge, and I was clinging on. So I decided to call it a day and not to jump Heidi.

Once we were home April and I washed all the sand off the horses and the tack and then I got myself cleaned up to join Mark and the girls to see Hamilton in London. What a truly fabulous show - I really think it is the best thing I’ve ever seen, and how glad I am now that we had such a lovely evening in London, sadly it will be the last for a very long time.

Very luckily we had Anna and Rory home for the weekend, a good opportunity to catch up with Anna and race round after his Lordship who is now crawling. He is like a racehorse whizzing round the kitchen and I am now the queen of stairgates - five so far.- which not only allow him to scamper around safely, but also allow me to put Twiglet somewhere he can see her, but not reach her, when she has had enough.

On Sunday four of my pupils hired the new show jumping course in the Polo Arena at Hickstead. What a fantastic new facility this is, with a lovely course built by Ben Townley, it provides a perfect simulation of a show, with nice forward distances and a course that gets gradually more technical, including the opportunity to jump and open water and a combination. I was so impressed that I went back on Wednesday with my own horses, and back again on Sunday with eight pupils. With my horses I was particularly thrilled with Khalissy who jumped round as bold as brass and straight over her first water tray and down her first combination.

On Thursday I went to Felbridge, for what was to be our last show. All the horses jumped well, and I was particularly pleased with Askeaton, who had shown a lack of confidence at Hickstead. I think she found jumping in the wet at Coombelands worrying, especially as I was a bit less secure than normal on my slippery saddle. This is good for me to know, and Emma was similar. These very sensitive mares give you their all, but this sensitivity also means that they think a lot and lose confidence easily when things aren’t absolutely right for them. With Emma I also had to find the perfect balance in who thought they were in control, and although Askeaton is a much more classical and easy ride than Emma in the ring, I think she likes a little bit of authority too. The horses teach you all the time, you just have to be willing to listen.

We were lucky to have Sophie for the weekend, especially as by then we knew that life would be changing fast with Coronavirus. I love riding with my girls, I find their ability to get back in the saddle, sometimes after six months or more, and immediately relax and tune in to each individual horse, truly admirable. We had a wonderful hack on Saturday, joined by Elena Watson, Navina Jensch and Karen Ibberson, sunny weather, lovely people and lovely horses, what more could you want.

Monday brought continuous bad news and reality checks. The start of social distancing heralded a financial disaster for the hospitality trade with expected lay-offs and the sense of hunkering down for the long haul. I made my own decision not to go to Pyecombe on Wednesday, and by Wednesday all shows were, quite rightly, off. We spent the rest of last week getting as much hacking done as possible, enjoying the dry but cold days and the fabulous views from the Ashdown Forest to the South Downs.

This Monday brought the news that we all suspected would come. a total lock-down for everyone apart from essential workers. Although I think this was inevitable and right, the behaviour of people who crowded into public spaces on Saturday and Sunday did entirely defy belief. So what the lock down means to us is that not only can April and Camilla not come to work, but also that nobody else can come to the yard. In the previous week I had felt that the situation was escalating, but that we didn’t really know just what we should have been doing, and I felt increasingly uneasy and unsafe. Understandably the Government’s lock down directive has caused some angst, but we will do our best to keep paying our staff as much as we can, and obviously I will continue to look after the horses with Mark. At the moment I am continuing to ride because I think this is going to be a long haul, and at the moment we have hardly a blade of grass here, so, although I can turn them out for a few hours a day, if we turn them out at night our fields will never recover, and also I think that at the moment the work involved in feeding, haying, rugging, poo-picking etc in the field is more than equal to mucking out and riding. Mark has harrowed and rolled the fields and once the grass starts to grow and the nights are a bit warmer we can rethink this.

I am enjoying watching Cameron Hanley’s daily training tips and practicing them each day. They can easily be adapted to a normal sized school 20 x 50 in our case, and if we are going to spend months in the school, rather than hacking, they will keep me and the horses entertained. Hopefully they will all be beautifully schooled by the time we are out and about again.

Mark is working from home, which he as adapted to brilliantly, Sophie and Alex are in London and Anna, Tom and Rory are still at Tom’s parents in Esher. Luckily the weather at the moment is extremely kind which is giving a good lift to our collective souls. I am practicing firm portion control to make our food last a bit longer, and strangely, apart from very much missing the girls, am not finding this too dreadful at the moment. I am hugely grateful to Salty, Pepper and Twiglet for being utterly sweet and keeping us entertained.

Many thanks to Camilla, Esther and April and our clients for being endlessly understanding, and for the front-line and essential workers who put themselves at risk daily to help all of us. We are lucky to have excellent support from Saracen Horse Feeds and Bodle Brothers have worked incredibly hard to keep us supplied with feed. My MacWet gloves are helping to protect me while I am out and about. Let’s hope that we will see good results from the lock-down quickly. Keep well everyone.

March - Another story altogether