December 2021

December seems to have gone by in a flash. With all the horses back in work, and with leaving for the Sunshine Tour at the end of February as a goal it has been full speed ahead to get the horses and me up to full fitness.

Arietta's last solo show was at Pyecombe right at the beginning of December where she continued her good form jumping a double clear in both the Newcomers and the Foxhunter, and landing a minor placing in the Newcomers.

We have started using the water treadmill at Hascombe Equestrian as part of the horses' fitness regime. Amelia and Lily were fantastic at gently introducing them to the treadmill and we have been there twice now. It is good low impact exercise for Askeaton, and will hopefully build up the strength of both Khalissy and Arietta behind. All the horses were very relaxed and Arietta was positively keen to get going the second time.

I have also been using the fantastic facilities at Hascombe for training, both the indoor and outdoor schools have really excellent surfaces and good modern fences. Khalissy and Askeaton had a first training session in the indoor without too much unnecessary excitement before going to their first show which was the Christmas Show at Pyecombe. They all jumped well, surprisingly the most excited was Arietta. This was a really fun show, everyone entering into the dressing up spirit and not taking the competition too seriously.

We have also managed to fit in a couple of training sessions with Trevor Breen, before he flew off to Dubai straight after Christmas. It's a little bit daunting to be preparing for the Sunshine Tour mainly on my own, but hopefully I'll manage not to make too much of a mess of it all.

We had our family Christmas get together the weekend before Christmas, so I have been even more confused about what day it is than everybody else - I've been convinced it's already January for the past week!

We had a final training session at Hascombe yesterday - somehow I managed to part company with Askeaton - so I hope that's the last one for a while. It's probably not practical to make a New Year's Resolution not to fall off - but I'm definitely going to try.