Welcome to blog! I started it in 2020 to chart my recovery from breaking my ankle (hence the name). I guess no-one saw a global pandemic coming. It's turned into a place where I can talk about the things happening in my life, my horse and my cats. Enjoy!
Headed over to Mousehold Farm for an arena hire today. Met up with these lovely ladies (and their ponies) for a pony play date.
The wind had some bite to it! I was a tad chilly when we’d finished. Clearly not working hard enough. 
It was lovely to pop Buddy over some jumps too. I feel like he’s had to take a bit of a backseat in the past few months. So it felt good to be doing something fun together.
8 years ago, I made one of the best decisions ever. I bought Buddy.
What better way to celebrate our anniversary than going to a jumping clinic! I can’t quite get my head around the fact it’s been 8 years since I bought this handsome boy. This year has probably been our toughest together with his injury and the challenges I’ve faced. But one thing is for sure, he melts my heart.
Looking back at the past 8 years, we have had so many highs. We’ve made so many memories together. We’ve achieved things I couldn’t have even dreamed. There are a lot of people in the Buddy Fan Club.
Today we had a lot of fun together. Especially after I remembered how to actually ride! Funny how muscle memory kicks in when you let it.
He is and will always be ‘My Absolute Diamond’. And I couldn’t love him more if I tried.
Second day of camp and our second lesson. This time flat work. Now we all know that it’s not our favourite thing. But the more I learn, the more I’m beginning understand the benefits. We had many a conversation about it while watching the lessons. There was also a lot of running about picking up poos and moving poles.
If your horse has a good walk, you can get a good trot. A good trot leads to a good canter. And a good canter leads to a good jump. Hardly rocket science, but something that’s worth keeping in mind.
Today’s lesson was on zig zag and turning using your legs rather than too much rein. Really made my brain hurt. Especially when we changed rein. I have to say, Buddy feels so much softer and improved in his flatwork since his rehab. He’s new and improved. Sadly his Mother wasn’t as improved. I seemed to have lost the ability to ride his canter, resulting in a few wall of death moments.
Then the lightbulb went on in my head and I muscle memory kicked in. Once I actually sat into him and went with him, it was a very different picture. Just shows that I have had time out too.
Last day tomorrow. This really is my happy place. And I’m very happy with my little boy today. As Ed Sheeran would say I was two stepping with the one love. Maybe it’s time to dust off the dancing shoes after all.
I’ve had the best start to September! Buddy flew through his lameness retest this morning. He’s been signed off by the vets! Hurrah!!
We now have permission leave the ground again. Only 30cm initially, but building up to 50cm in a couple of weeks. As long as there are no further issues, we have the green light to crack on. Now I just need to keep Buddy from falling over the ‘trip / spook hazard’ heights for a bit.
I’m so relieved, emotional and excited all at the same time. This has been my first real experience of dealing with an injury like this. So it’s been a long 16 weeks from diagnosis to now.
Buddy’s support team have been in full force. It shows that with the right people around you, you can overcome anything. What is it they say about it takes a tribe. Well I am forever grateful to mine. Thank you for caring for Buddy so well and putting an arm around me when I wasn’t sure what was going on.
There have been so many people who’ve checked in on us too. So many have come on this journey with us. Thank you. It means so much knowing I have good people in my corner.
The downside to not riding as much is that I am feeling it now we are building up the work. I’m about 2/10th lame I’d say. My fitness has dropped off too, so we’ll both be blowing to start off with.
So it’s onwards and upwards!! For us both.
Another day and another set of ears. I am a very lucky girl indeed to get the chance to ride so many different horses.
Each one makes me smile in their own way. They’re all very different. Today I got to jump Archie. He was a total dreamboat.
Reminds me that not only am I good rider. I am a confident rider too. Having only sat on him once very briefly, today I got on and popped him round a few jumps.
Took me a few jumps to work him out. And him me. I haven’t jumped a different horse for a while so I’m rather used to Buddy. Once we worked each other out, it felt so good to be jumping again.
It wasn’t that long ago that my confidence was shattered. It’s been a long road to getting back to me. I’m sure there are many silver linings to Buddy being off games. This is definitely one.
Cuppage was the word of the day. Bear with, I’ll explain. Two brilliant lessons today. And we stayed dry for the most part.
Flatwork this morning. Working on encouraging Buddy to go rounder. Lots of leg yielding and straightness.
This afternoon, it was jumping. Building on what we’d done in our first lesson.
Really like Emily’s style of teaching. She explained things in a way I could get. Learnt a lot in a short space of time.
Back to cuppage. Emily put a number of jump cups and blocks around the arena to help us to get the right line in and out. When one of us missed it, cuppage was shouted across the arena. Made us all giggle.
We finished off the day with a swim, more food and lots more giggles. There was even more cuppage in the pool. But what happens at camp, stays at camp…
Took Buddy out for a very long hack today. Nearly two hours round the beautiful countryside. I planned the route thinking it would be a wonderfully relaxing one after a bit of a stressful time.
Buddy had other ideas and decided to jump at most of the flappy things. And by flappy things, I mean the hundreds of partridges, pheasants and pigeons that are about at the moment.
We seem to go through this every year. It’s like he’s never seen a bird before. Next week, one will be able to ninja strike without issue. Hell, they could put on a musical theatre production in the hedge and he wouldn’t bat an eyelid. But today, terrifying.
Let’s just say I came back like James Bond’s martini. He does make me laugh.
What a blooming brilliant day! We got to do something new today. We were demo riders for a BHS CPD day. We had to ride in front of 14 coaches / instructors.
There were five of us riding today. Four in a group lesson and one in a private. Yesterday, Jo Winfield chose us to have the private lesson. What an honour. She was complimentary about my riding ability, Buddy’s capability and our partnership. As were a number of the coaches afterwards.
Obviously I didn’t hear everything she was saying about us as that’s not the idea. She’s coaching the coaches as well as me.
Today was all about Arena Eventing. Something we’ve done before. But not like this. Buddy jumped everything I asked. He gave me such a great feeling. Got to open him up for the XC style jumps.
Still lots to work on. We had so much fun though! Just what I needed. I smiled all the way home. I came away with homework. And am learning to us my body to slow him down.
We will both sleep well tonight.
I’ve seen a lot of XC courses with astroturf jumps on them. So I pimped one of my jumps today. Doesn’t it look great?
I put it in the arena along with a mix of SJ and XC style jumps and popped Buddy round them.
He did jumped the astroturf jump but I could tell he wasn’t reading it right. We had a couple of stops at it. And a glorious stag leap. So I made a few adjustments and put some poles across it to help him.
Think I might need some white battons on it. Still really pleased with my DIY jumps. Anyone else look at objects and think what kind of jump they’d make..?!
Fear not, the only thing that’s died is my bucket. This is the result of someone having a teenager tantrum because they’d eaten all of their recovery mash. I fear I may have created a monster!
He got a bit of a time-out after that.
Thankfully he was exemplary in his two lessons today. First up was jumping. Finally we’ve cracked the perfect canter that Caroline’s been asking for. Only taken me 6 years!
This afternoon it was flat work with Jo. She put me in resistance bands. Well that was an experience! Not sure my thighs will be the same after that. But definitely helped with my lower leg.
In between, Buddy popped on the Spillers weigh-bridge. He’s now 646kg. Which sounds like a lot, but he’s all muscle. He got a perfect body score.
It’s so lovely to hear how well he’s looking. From many people. Sadly my bucket has seen better days…
Tales, Tails and Talus 