You know when people tell you ‘everything happens for a reason’ and it’s usually when something bad has happened or something has gone wrong, at the time I feel a tiny urge to punch them and say there’s no reason for my horse being injured again, it’s just cr*p and can we leave it at that……but it’s funny how the ups and downs of life, the big decisions and the small all add up to get us where we are right now.

Without Azid’s injuries I’d have never had the opportunity to ride Roo, without Qantas injuring himself I’d have never taken Roo to Red Dragon and without taking Roo to Red Dragon I’d have never fully appreciated how amazing Tissy was. I’ll explain….

I entered Roo into the 42km Novice at Red Dragon and I had no idea how it would go. Roo hasn’t had that much training with me yet and although he aced his 25km pleasure ride it was flat and at a laid back small venue. From home Roo isn’t the most forward going little pony (unless you box him out, Tissy was the exact same at his age) and in training and at his pleasure ride whenever a horse comes up behind he just stops. So I had visions of having to ride him across the start line, hop off and lead him out the venue.

Red Dragon is a fairly tough course but I’d only ever ridden it on Tissy so I don’t think I appreciated how tough it actually is as Tissy just aced the terrain, flew over the hills and sped back down them with ease. It’s not until I’d experienced it on a different horse did I realise how special Tissy was, how lucky I was to have her. But also it’s really taught me to appreciate the little things about my other horses too, to really be happy about completing a 40km.

Roo arrived at the venue on Friday a little tired from the journey. He went in the stable without fuss, settled beautifully, lay down and proceeded to snore…..actually snore, he didn’t even twitch an ear! It was so cute.

The next morning I took him for a walk around the venue and he just munched grass had a little look around but no drama, no pulling, no freaking out, just chilled. Qantas has really made me appreciate just a well behaved chilled out horse! He vetted nicely, not minding the atmosphere of the barn, he stood still to be tacked up and bimbled off to the start without a care in the world.

And then he TROTTED out the venue, ears pricked and forward going, not bothered with any other horses, I was so pleased he was up for it, I was having the best time just in the first 100m! I made him walk up the big hill, our plan to get a ride speed of 10kph, but in my head between 8-10kph was realistic and we may need all our available ride time due to the tricky terrain and Roo not being that fit and balanced yet.

Roo rode in company, by himself, in front, at the back and even for a short moment side by side, he doesn’t seem to like this and usually gives the other horse a funny look and tries to stop. He rode in a group, then let them go without too much protest when I asked him to maintain his own pace and not go at theirs. He listened to my legs to move from side to side of the undulating rutted tracks, I rode every metre picking the course out for him, left to his own devices he doesn’t make the best route decisions. Whereas Tissy seems to pick out the best track for herself and actually would probably do just fine without a rider, Roo would most certainly end up in a bog, tripping up and landing on his face or crashing into a tree….

He did on the move sloshes, stood still at the crew points, he drank water when offered later in the ride. When he was tired and I asked for him to keep going he put his head down and showed a true grit I didn’t know he had, he gave his all, absolutely everything I asked of him, he did without question. *I’m definitely not feeling emotional typing this, nope, not me, I’m fine, not overwhelmed with pride and admiration at all*

When we got back to the venue he just burst into a canter, like he knew we were home, he cantered over the finish line as if to say ‘look everyone, I’m doing it’. Sadly my crew missed Roo finishing so it’s not on camera but I was bursting with pride.

His heart rate was 54bpm in under 2 minutes, despite being tired, so his natural recovery is pretty good. We gave him another 10minutes as he was very hot, before going down to the vetting. Roo was undoubtedly tired, he’d tried so hard for me and it was a tough course for a first 40km, his heart rate was 42. Our trot up away was a bit dodgy, he kind of stumbled into it/wasn’t keen to trot, maybe I needed to circle him away and walk a bit before asking him to trot, because it was like he’d switched off during the heart rate and having to move was a bit of a shock. But once we got to the bottom cone and had woken back up his trot back was lovely. The vet very fairly gave him a B for gait due to our less than graceful start but he was sound and we had passed!!!

We took him back to the stable and I swear you’ve never seen a more snoozy pony. He had lots of food, lots of cuddles a couple of hours rest and then we boxed him up and took him home. The next day he was feeling the effects, a little stiff and a little muscle sore over the shoulders, back and hamstrings but he was sound and full of energy. I couldn’t have been happier. I’m so excited to get Roo strong and fit over winter and see what next season brings.

Am I the only one who loves packing?? *hides face in embarrassment* but really, I do love packing. I love the ritual of preparing everything for competition, I love the feeling of being organised and just the whole process in general.

I have some packing lists you can find over on this blog post.

But today I thought I’d talk more about the little rituals we all do, we all do them right? Please tell me it’s not just me!! So for me I like to clean all my tack and wash all that needs washing the day before packing.

I then start by getting everything ready in it’s separate sections so crew kit, horse feed, tack, rider kit etc and then once everything is ready I’ll start packing it all into the lorry. Everything has a place, I fill my crew kit in the same order every time, out of efficiency rather than superstition or need. I find that it helps me get into competition mode, calms my usually racing brain and gives a sense of control and order.

The last thing to go in is always my grooming box and horse bathing stuff because I do that just before we leave, inevitably Tissy still poo’s down her back legs and tail and I might as well have not bothered, but I try.

I always make sure I have a bottle of easily accessibly water and some snacks whilst driving, plan my route and have some notes of key roads/turns in case I loose my satnav and off I go.

Well I think so! Roo did his last ‘test’ in training to see whether I thought he was ready for 40km and *spoiler alert* he breezed it.

I decided to do my usual training test ride at Cannock chase on the hillier side to give me more of a feel of whether he was ready to tackle his first 40km at Red Dragon. There will be no prizes for speed, but Roo isn’t strong enough and he doesn’t have good enough proprioception for speed yet so we won’t judge him there. However, what he did do was go at a nice steady pace, listened and had a good recovery at the end so in my book, that’s an all clear for making the step up.

We did 12km and in total our training ride consisted of only 4 minutes canter, it’s hard not to let them enjoy themselves on the nice grassy strips. And the rest of our hour and a half session was in walk and trot at an average speed of 7.4kph. Now I know this is slower and shorter than what I would usually like to train at but we were out with a friend from the yard, who’s horse can’t go as fast, and it was more important to me that Roo enjoyed and had some company than to try and hit 12kph or do 16km.

Our last PR was a 22km at 11.8kph so I know he’s more than capable of maintaining the required Novice speed parameters so rather than stick hard and fast to my usual training regime I decided to bend my own rules so that we could have some fun…..I know….who am I!!!!

Roo is definitely getting stronger, my instructor has really helped us with this and it’s starting to show in his attitude out and about, his spooks come with more oomph, his downward transitions are much more balanced and his movement is starting to become more effortless. I’m really excited for a winter of working on his strength and balance and can’t wait to see how he progresses over the next few months.

It’s that time of year again for the ‘big day’ where I usually get the Farrier, Vets, Equine Dentist and Physio all in at the same time. This year however we didn’t have the Physio but we still had a lot going on.

Qantas has had his re-scan and the fibres in his bicep are healing nicely, he’s moving much better and seems to be on the right path to making a full recovery so fingers crossed for him!

Roo had some new shoes with pins in ready for Red Dragon and Tissy and Qantas have now gone barefoot for their autumn holidays.

Poor Tissy had another tooth extracted but hopefully this will mean less food will get compacted in the gaps, making her overall mouth health much better. We’ve actually finally managed to get a decent amount of weight on her by reducing her training so hopefully she’s all ready for wintering well.

Vaccinations are all done and up to date and my little herd of three are all in all doing ok.

Those of you who know me from real life will remember a horse called Pria. Those of you who have joined the journey since we started vlogging won’t have met her. So Pria is now a 14yo arab from Halsdon Arabians. I went down to Devon to pick her up when she was 5 and we made it all the way to 1* FEI.

We were ready to take her to her first 2* when training had really plateaued, she wasn’t muscling up the way she should be with the amount of training she was doing so our Physio recommended taking her for a bit of an MOT with the vets before our race. She wasn’t lame, she didn’t seem to be in pain, the only real ‘symptom’ would be stiffness after any canter work and the lack of muscle development.

It turned out she had some issues with her bones, at 16.1hh she was very tall and had very long legs for an arab. She also had some issues with her SIJ’s. I gave her a year off to recover, to mature (she was 8 at the time) and chill out. I then bought her back into work a year later, we did a 64km ride and she passed with flying colours. But the vets had told me that with hard, intense work her bony issues were likely to come back and that she was at a high risk of stress fractures and would need constant assessment.

I just wasn’t willing to continue to train and compete her at a level that could potentially break her. Now I know that elite athletes are always on the cusp of injury, balancing along that fine line between performance and breakdown. But when it comes to horses, for me anyway, if they are struggling as they get up to the top of the sport I don’t want to push them just to achieve my goals and potentially put them at risk, especially when I already know it’s more likely.

So rather than walk that knife edge and always wonder if I was doing the right thing by continuing Pria on her FEI career I decided to sell her. Pria landed well and truly on all four hooves as she is now with the most wonderful owner who couldn’t love her more if she tried and Pria is most definitely happy being treated like the Princess she always knew she was.

So since then Sara, Pria’s new owner, and I have tried to meet up and go for a ride every year. Tissy and Pria always recognise each other and have a good whicker and squeal. And although letting go of a horse always breaks my heart, and it’s bitter sweet seeing them again, we have a lovely time catching up on the horses and it’s so nice to see Pria loving life and giving someone else so much joy.

Kate and I were on the Young Rider Team together in 2012, my brother started to help crew for her in 2018 and Dan, Will, my Mum and I all crewed her for her first senior Championships in 2019 because Kate’s Mum, Rachael, was also competing in the same Championship. The very first time a Mother and Daughter combo have made it onto a Team GBR team together, a feat in itself getting two horses to the start line of a Championship, but they both also completed the Championship course.

So when Kate asked us to crew her for an 80km at the Cumbrian Challenge of course we said yes. Readwood had two horses competing Eros and Nessie, with Jess and Kate riding. It also meant we got to visit my brother Will as he lives at Readwood.

Both horses flew through the initial vetting and went out onto what is a technical and tough course. The weather was perfect, not too hot, the rain held off and not too windy. The pair came into the first vet gate just behind the lead horse but managed to present 2 minutes ahead so were out on the next loop in the lead.

The second loop made for an exciting race as the horse in third caught up and started to pull away as it was just flying on the downhills, whereas Kate and Jess were picking their way across the rocky terrain. Crewing was just as quick as we tried to get them every 5km due to how tough the course was. Just sloshing one crew point and then doing a full crew stop the next.

I swear crewing is harder than riding! They came in behind the leader for the last vet gate, presented ahead again but sadly the other horse didn’t continue on the last loop. Which was a great shame not just for horse and rider but also as it makes for a fun last loop for both riders and crews when the competition is hot.

Kate and Jess went out on the last loop and brought both the horses home for a steady 1, 2 across the finish line. Jess getting her first win as the pair had ridden the whole ride together and Kate had taken the top spot in their last 80km so it was only fair Jess got the glory this time.

Both horses recovered well and were ready to go into the final vetting without much crewing. Eros passed with flying colours but sadly Nessie needed a three card trick and was vetted out. Nessie didn’t know he was out though and we smothered both horses in praise and carrots.

We headed home for a celebratory takeaway together, even though Nessie was out he still rode a great ride and we had all had a good day, so plenty of reasons to celebrate still, and the next day we all went bouldering at the local climbing centre. A lovely weekend full of activity and friends, it made me miss racing so much but I also enjoyed being part of the day as crew.

I didn’t know I needed this! I’ve done a few Pleasure rides this year. One on Tissy, who of course I love to ride, but I expect her to do well, you’d hope so after all her training, I expect her to ace the terrain, be good to trot up. I know her every move, I know she’ll throw in totally random spooks and bucks just for the sheer hell of it, she loves her job and I love her, but there’s still an expectation. One on Qantas, that was brimming with anxiety (on my part and his) because it’s been such a tough road getting him there, he’s a difficult horse on the ground, to ride, to manage. When he’s good he’s incredible when he’s bad he goes all out.

And my third of the year on Roo, who is laid back, up for anything and who I had absolutely no expectations, pre-conceptions or idea of how he’d be at a ride. So I went with an open mind, the goal of just to go with it and enjoy, and that is exactly what I did. I had a great time at the Ranskill 24km pleasure ride. I hadn’t realised up until that point that I hadn’t really been enjoying the rides themselves but expecting the results and using them as a tick box. It was an excellent reminder that although I want to be competitive and I’m always going to have structure to my goals, I also need to prioritise fun!!

Anyway, onto the point of this blog! I’ve had a couple of questions about how you’re meant to conduct yourself out on course so I thought this would be a good time to go through them. It would be interesting to hear if other endurance riders have other ‘unwritten rules’ or things that they expect from their fellow riders out on course?

Firstly I always ask if I can pass, I then always wait until there is a safe space to do so, if I’m behind a slower rider on a narrow track I’m just going to slow down and wait at a respectable distance so they don’t feel pressured into going faster.

When I’ve been given the ok to pass I kind of assess the horse as I’m approaching, if they’re chilled I’ll trot past, if they look anxious I’ll walk. Once I’ve overtaken I will then look behind me for a while to make sure they’re not having any difficulty and the horse isn’t chasing after us.

If you come across someone in need of help or a loose horse, always help them, but only if it is safe for you to do so. Don’t worry about your time, there are more important things in life. But also when you make it to the next check point, let them know you’ve been helping someone and how long it took, because the Technical steward may then grant you that time back.

When opening gates with other people around, say thank you to whoever the opener is of course, but also stay on the other side, a safe distance away so none of the horses have the opportunity to kick each other and don’t continue until everyone is safely back on board. There’s nothing worse than trying to get back on a horse that’s been hyped up by others careering off into the distance without it. Always check the ride schedule too, as if there is a lot of gates out on course, there is usually a gate allowance and that will effect your average speed.

As for checkpoints I always think it’s my responsibility to make sure they have my number so I always shout it out to them and of course thank them for their time. The same with all stewards out on course, without them we wouldn’t be riding, so make sure you say thank you to everyone.

If I come into a crew point and there is a horse across the track but it’s drinking I wait for it to finish drinking before I ask to pass. Now, there’s another point here that crew should really try and take their horses off track for crewing if possible so that they’re not blocking the track but sometimes there’s just not enough space.

I may have been keeping this a little quiet over the past couple of months because I wanted time to make sure it was going to work out and to get to know him.

But I think it’s now time to share the newbie of our herd, Roo! I was offered Roo on loan at the start of 2021 but I was at my maximum capacity and budget of three horses so I had to say no. He went to someone else and I was sad to have passed up the opportunity. The very week I put Azid up for sale, Roo was sent back from his new home as it wasn’t working out, and I was offered him again, knowing I now had space for a new horse. Fate, some might say.

I obviously did not know at the time that Qantas was going to injure himself and thought of Roo as a project pony, a lovely opportunity to have a horse on loan, and see how far we got without too much pressure. Despite now having to step up and be my main focus I’m still going to try and have a no pressure, no expectations attitude, as it’s actually really nice to be so chilled.

Roo is 8 years old and owned by a rider who was my absolute idol as a Junior, Liz, making this an even more surreal and dreamy experience. Liz and her mare Falaina were like my pin- ups, if there were signed posters of them, I would have had it on my wall. Falaina was an incredible mare and to have the opportunity to ride one of her sons is such an honour.

He was also backed by the extremely talented team at Stride Ahead so I know he’s had an excellent start to his training but he’s also not done very much, which I see as a positive, as he’s had time to mature and grow. He’s done a few graded rides but not yet done a 40km or above. So that’s my aim for this year, get his first 40km Novice qualification under his belt, spend the winter strengthening him up and improving his fitness and just enjoy next year and see where it takes us.

I can’t thank Liz enough for trusting him with me and I hope that we’ll have lots of fun adventures together.

Training myself to be as well balanced, strong and symmetrical as I can be is super important to me both physically and mentally. Physically for obvious reasons, I want to be the best human I can be for my horses but mentally so that when I’m out on a tough course I know that I’ve got this and when I cross that start line I know I’ve done everything I can. I was once told my a Young Rider, who was one of my idol at the time, that ‘A fit horse can do nothing with a tired rider, but a fit rider can hold together a tired horse’. That’s stuck with me and something I’ve tried to live up to.

Now I won’t lie I’m failing a bit on the tip top condition human part at the moment. When I’m training for FEI I have loads of motivation to train myself, because I need the extra muscle to make weight. But when I don’t have that goal I sometimes find it a bit harder to motivate myself to go hard at the gym. Couple that with multiple injuries over the past three years; two sets of broken ribs on different occasions, dislocating my shoulder twice, breaking my hand, three concussions, multiple bike crashes and horse falls, and I’m no where near where I need to be.

But actually that’s ok, I know that, I know what I need to do and sometimes taking a slightly easier, slower route is fine. It means than when I get back to the bigger distances I won’t be sour about training, I’ll be excited. That’s where mixing it up really comes in handy, keeping it fresh, interesting and fun is so important, otherwise it just becomes a chore.

So at the moment I do three strength/weight sessions in the gym a week. Two bodyweight sessions at home following either Madfit or Yoga with Adriene on YouTube. Then one to two cardio sessions either on the rower at work or on my mountain bike.

Is it my fault? That’s the question that’s been bobbing around my brain recently. I have had three horses since retiring Tissy from international competition, in the hope of returning to FEI and Team selection. It’s been 7 years since I was last selected to represent Team GBR. So what am I doing wrong? Or is it really just luck?

I am very grateful that both Pria and Azid have been rehomed to wonderful owners, who enjoy them and care for them, that they have been able to have a ridden career and continue to compete and have adventures. But both couldn’t cope with the higher level training. Qantas has recently pulled his bicep muscle in the field and is out for the rest of the season. Was it my fault?

I keep a detailed diary of my training and the care of my horses and when I look back through the training I see nothing that could be deemed too much. I very very rarely train over 20km at a time, they only train 3-4 x a week in their novice years, day on day off up to 80km and 4 days on one day off above that. I mix up my training throughout the week and change the training focus every 6 weeks. They have three months off every year to just be horses and have a holiday. I don’t over compete with only 3-5 competitions a season and those aren’t at high speeds. They have weeks off after competition and are always bought back slowly into work.

So when I analyse my training I can’t see where I’m going wrong and I wouldn’t change what I do. But maybe something does need to change? But what? A conundrum I have been mulling over for a while, is it me, is it luck, are there external factors, do I need a major overhaul?

But for now Qantas is actually recovering well, he’ll get everything he needs to help him through and then we’ll make a plan and see how he goes. I’m remaining hopeful that this is just a blip in his endurance horse road and not a full stop. The hardest part is seeing all the potential in your horse, being excited about that spark they show, having hope that they’ll get there and then it being taken away. That’s why equestrians are so emotionally resilient, we have grit, we get back up again and we don’t give up, but most of all we always put the horse first.