This has been a little longer in the making than I would have hoped, but you just can’t rush a horse! I bought Qantas back in November 2019 and had hoped to do hist first Pleasure Ride in early spring, probably in March 2020. Two tendon injuries, a sliced jaw, weight loss and a Pandemic later it just wasn’t going to happen.

Draw up Plan B: Probably the loosest plan I’ve ever had…….do a Pleasure Ride whenever lockdown is over and they’re back on! Ha! During lockdown I broke a few bones (5 in total, on 3 seperate occasions) and Qantas had a very sore back, followed by something going on with his right ear. There’s no denying he’s kept us on our toes in the short time we’ve had him.

Pleasure rides started back up, all my bones were intact, Qantas was injury free so I entered our first 16km Social ride. Now the distance isn’t an issue, we can easily train that as home. But the going to a venue, having horses in front, behind, passing and alongside would be a new experience for him. So I mainly do the shorter distances to train for the environment rather than the distance.

I won’t lie I was a little nervous. Prestwold was a venue and route I’d never been to with a horse I wasn’t entirely sure would behave. But I knew as soon as I was on board I would deal with whatever he threw at me.

He travelled well and stood like a lamb on the lorry while we got our number and sorted out our stuff. He came off the ramp quietly and was very well behaved to tack up and get on. We started on our own but soon found ourselves asking to pass other horses and riders, Qantas passed politely without rushing and happily left them behind. Something I was super impressed with him for.

For the first 5km he was a bit tense spooking at the silliest things, like a gap in the hedge, or a bit of mud from a tractor tyre on the floor, but mooched past massive silos and pheasant feeders without a fuss. There were a couple of two way sections and he didn’t baulk at being passed or being left by himself.

After that first 5km he started to be an absolute dream of a ride. He’s not ready to do much cantering so we mainly trotted and walked. But his trot lazily eats up the miles and his canter is to die for, light, easy and ground covering. We did a steady 12kph and for the last few kilometres ended up riding in a group of three. He went behind (with a bit of protest) and in front very happily.

I would have liked more horses to pass us out on course because this is what he really needs to work on and going at the back is not his favourite thing. Nonetheless he was very well behaved in the little pack. I had an absolutely wonderful time and the course was lovely.

However when we got back to the venue he disgraced himself. The horse he’d met 15minutes ago was now his best friend forever and we had cruelly taken him away from her, his life would never be the same again and he lost his head. Qantas is usually pretty laid back to handle but what arrived back at the venue was a bolshy, screaming, ill tempered Arab who was hell bent on being re-united with his friend.

We did not let him drag us across the venue in search of his one true love and he was very very cross, however this did mean that having arrived on a heart rate of 68, he maintained a steady 72 through all the screaming whinnying noise he made. Not ideal for an endurance horse. I’m hoping that the more we get out and about the less attached he’ll get to random horses we meet out on course, if not, it looks like a lonely endurance career for me, riding by myself to stop him getting separation anxiety!

But despite that he loaded back up well and quit his yelling as soon as the ramp was up and wen’t back to munching…..the fickle and forgetful heart he has! I went home with that endurance buzz and am quietly planning our next adventure!

I prepare for a pleasure ride more or less exactly the same as I would for a 160km. For me it’s all about having a routine, getting to know the horse and being consistent. I guess the only difference would be how training tapers in the run up. I don’t really need to taper for a 16km pleasure ride, as I use it for training and educational purposes.

So in the week running up to a ride no matter how long that ride may be I would do the following.

• Pessoa or Lunge for 20mins 3-4 days out: This gives me the time to really watch my horse move, note how the muscles look and any asymmetries.
• Full body assessment: I really like this book (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Where-Does-Horse-Hurt-Hands/dp/1570764867) but I also use a combination of things I’ve been taught by Physio’s and vets over the years. The more often I do it, the better I get to know every inch of my horse, how it’s responding to training and whether we’re ready for competition.
• Massage: I use an Equillibrium massage pad and then I do a hands on massage for any areas that need it. Shoulders, neck and limbs I usually use my hands but for the back, bum and hamstrings I like to use a roller ball mit. In my normal routine I do this about once a week but pre-ride I like to do it the day before.
• Stretches: I stretch after every training session using baited stretches. But I like to stretch the day before a ride and really note how everything feels and moves.
• Bath time: I try not to bath my horse the day before, mainly because the UK weather is usually a bit chilly and I don’t want their muscles getting cold and tight. So I’ll usually give them a bath 3-4 days out and if they need any spot cleaning the day of the ride I’ll get a cloth and some warm water out.
• Trot up: I like to trot up whenever we lead up from the field but the week before I ride I take particular care to trot up every day properly. It helps with trot up training but it also means we’re super tuned in to the way their moving and making sure at no point we have any doubt about their soundness. I always trot up just before loading too, you can never be too sure with horses can you!

I quite like to see and learn about other peoples routines. I think it’s interesting what works for each individual and horse. What keeps a riders mind relaxed and prepared for an event, we all know it’s as much to keep us happy as it is to prepare our horse.

Who else looks at social media posts and gets training envy? The I wish I lived there, I wish I had time for that, Do they even work?, I wish I could afford this the I’ll never get there and never be able to do that. The green eyed monster rears it’s ugly head quite regularly when I scroll through my social media.

Then I thought, what if someone is looking at my posts and thinking exactly the same thing, wishing they were me, with my resources, my facilities, my time. I am very lucky to have what I’ve got, I had supportive parents as a teenager and a good job and great partner now. I work a 37.5 hour week with regular 8am-4pm hours Monday to Friday with enough pay for bills, three horses and some fun. So I know I am exceedingly lucky.

Then I thought the pictures I share of my hacks are the 1km in my 10km loop that has nice going and good views, I had to ride 4km on tarmac roads to get there. So surely this is the same for everyone else, you have to remember you’re seeing everyone’s highlights, just the good bits of training.

So yes I don’t have a horse walker, a horse treadmill, a hydro treadmill, I don’t have access to hacking or gallops from my yard. But I do have a hydro treadmill 15minutes away, a pond in the local woods, a grass canter track 15minutes away, Cannock chase 40minutes away, a beautiful sand school at the yard. A lovely little lorry so that I can box out to these places and people who love and help me.

I’ve worked hard to get to where I am in my job and recieve the pay I do. I fully intend to spend probably 50% of that on my horses, taking them to the aqua treadmill, paying for gallops and fuel to get places. That’s my choice to not eat out or buy new clothes and spend the money on my passion.

I just want everyone to remember that you are doing the best you can with what you’ve got. Someone will always have and do more, someone will always have and do less. What we see on social media is not the full picture, someone who looks like they have everything and all their ducks in a row may actually be having a really tough time. Someone who seems to be doing next to nothing may be training hard behind the scenes. Don’t compare your reality with someone else’s highlights and more than anything dream big, because hard work pays off and maybe, just maybe, one day I’ll own all those things I wish I had.

I need help finding my training motivation now all my bones are intact! It is so nice to be back not only riding my horses but out on my mountain bike too. Considering I only started mountain biking about a year 9 months ago, as soon as I couldn’t do it, I really really missed it.

The last 9 weeks I’ve had broken ribs and a broken hand, from two separate injuries and then Qantas fell over in the school a week ago, his mouth and bit full of sand after nosediving. I came off over the front of the saddle, hit the floor with my face, pulled a muscle in my left shoulder and cracked another rib when he stood on me with 3 of his available 4 feet…..thanks for that Q!

So needless to say I am not as fit as I would like to be, I am probably the least muscled I’ve been since I started weight training in my teens. Normally I would do 3 gym sessions a week, mainly free weights and some body weight, two cardio sessions, usually on my mountain bike and two Pilates/Yoga sessions a week. Plus having a very active job and horse riding. But recently I’ve lost my exercise mojo (not helped by broken bones, but no excuse) especially as I don’t have to be a certain weight for FEI races at the moment, so I’m lacking that as motivation.

At FEI endurance riders have to weigh a minimum 75kg with their saddle at 3* level, my natural weight is around the 56kg mark, if I train hard then I manage to keep a steady 62kg which means my saddle has to weigh 13kg, which although heavy is much better than the 19kg it would have to weigh if I didn’t train myself.

With the likelihood of me competing at FEI a good year or two away I really need something else to motivate me and get me out of bed in the mornings. I have to train before work otherwise it’s not happening, I have no motivation to do so after riding in the evenings. I know very well that the stronger and fitter I am the better I ride and the less likely I am to get injured if I fall but without a goal weight it’s difficult to quantify stronger and fitter to give me something to aim for.

What does everyone else use as motivation? How do you measure your training success and what your aiming for?

After one too many times forgetting to charge my GPS, forgetting to put it on my wrist and then forgetting where I put it, I decided to give a horse activity tracker a go.

I’ve seen lots of people use Equilab and it gives a nice breakdown of the paces, transitions, turns and speed so I thought I’d test out its’s accuracy by testing it against my GPS watch. Turns out they matched up pretty well and seeing as I always have my phone on me it makes a great alternative to my watch for everyday training.

Although for big training rides and competition I’ll use my watch as it gives a current and average speed, current distance and also can be used as a HR monitor.

Also, exciting news, Qantas has been entered into his first Novice ride, the Red Dragon 42km at the start of October so fingers crossed viruses, horse injuries, human injuries, vehicle breakdowns or any other ride cancelling drama will remain at bay.

Qantas has been deemed ready for his first pleasure ride, yay!!! Two weeks out from our first 16km organised ride I decided to take Qantas on what is as close to the real thing as possible.

We gave him a mini vetting, passed horses, let horses pass him, rode in a pair and by himself. Crossed water, went past scary things and crewed him at the end.

So now he’s hit my criteria for doing his first ride:

• Well fitting and comfortable tack
• Loading and travelling well
• Easily achieving 8km at home
• Safe alone and in company
• Good at practice vettings
• Achieveing a HR under 64bpm within 10mins

Qantas really did smash all of them and I’m so excited to see how he does when we go on our first proper outing.

We had great fun at the Livery when Baileys Horse Feeds came to see all the horses, I hadn’t really realised that yard visits and nutritional advice was free so I jumped at the chance at getting to see Sarah from the Baileys Team when my ponies came out of lock down looking a bit on the chubby side of life and not in full training.

Over the years I’ve toiled over active ingredients, papers on efficacy, comparing products from different brands, making lists and lists of the optimum nutrition and the best products for my horses needs. It was so nice to have someone way more qualified take that burden away from me and plan my horses diets.

I wasn’t really sure what would happen at a yard visit so I thought I’d share the experience. I firstly looked on their website and found the body condition scoring page super useful. So I weightaped and scored my horses myself before Sarah arrived just to see how accurate I could be and compare where I went wrong with her findings.

When Sarah arrived she asked me all about each horse, temperament, training level, how they hold and loose weight, feeding regimes, their management, literally everything about them. Then she weightaped, scored and then weighbridged each of them. Now as with humans weighing isn’t really an accurate indication of fitness and health, muscle weighs more than fat so actually measuring the tummy and assessing muscle tone and fat deposits, just as we would with humans, is a much better and more accurate way to continually assess our horses than using actual weight, which is good new really, as I don’t own a weighbridge.

After that we went through their feed options, what to give when, how I can adapt it to training load and condition. How I can use feed during competition and the nutritional needs of my horses versus what each product can give. It was really nice to get another pair of eyes on my horses and have the backing of their knowledge to help me achieve the best possible feed plan for the results I wanted to achieve.

Sarah had lot’s of tips from what scoops and cups to use for which feed, the digestive system of a horse, how to make fussy horses drink, to how much a horses stomach can hold and easily absorb the nutrients within the feed. So here’s the video of our day, let’s hope the next time Sarah sees my horses they’re looking sleeker, fitter and musclier.

Azid has been on box rest for 6 weeks, 3 weeks on shavings and three weeks on wood pellets. After a few weeks on the wood pellet bedding from Blue Ribbon it’s safe to say it has delivered on its promises. We’ve only had to pop an extra bag in once a week which works out as £4.61 a week (individual bags are more expensive than a pallet), whereas on shavings I was spending £6.75- £10.12 depending on how much wet Azid was creating.

Pros:

• Sustainable
• Cheap-ish (Compared to shavings, that’s around a £200 saving per horse, per year)
• Low waste
• Next to no odour
• Easy to remove poo and wet (The wet is now a tiny amount and it kind of all holds together like play-do)

Cons:

• Can get dusty if you don’t add enough water
• Doesn’t look as pretty as shavings
• Heavier in comparison to shavings to throw up

So all in all we’re very happy after all our research that Blue Ribbon has met our expectations and wishes for a functional, comfortable bedding for our horses. Long may the lovely pine forest smell emanate from our stable.

After filming this I realised I do not clean my saddles enough….so what do people use to clean their tack? How often do you do it? and do you have any top tips? I need sparkly well kept tack inspiration. Now don’t get me wrong I’ll give my saddles a quick wipe fairly often and my bridles get rinsed down all the time, but an actual proper clean, well as you see in the video, not so much.

After research into bedding I found that https://blueribbonhorsebedding.co.uk/ ticked all of my boxes. It’s sustainable, natrual, the packaging is recyclable, it’s meant to be low waste, highly biodegradable, quick to muck out, comfy and not too dusty. I mean it sounds like the dream bedding.

I watched some set up tutorials from one of their ambassadors and fellow endurance rider, Bella Fricker. I would say when setting up we learnt that you need to leave a few inches of bag intact the whole way round so that water doesn’t seep out (rookie error) and actually we needed more like 7-10 litres per bag to stop it being dusty, with more water the bedding is a bit like memory foam, it’s not wet at all, but it kind of bounces back when you squidge it, very satisfying.

So the test will be over the next few weeks as to whether it lives up to it’s claims but on first impressions I like it a lot. Do people have favourite beddings? I know some love the look of big golden straw banks and others the ease of throwing up shavings, it’s funny really. Everyone has different needs, budgets, accessibility, so I guess there isn’t one supreme bedding to rule over them all, but I’m hoping Blue Ribbon does a pretty decent job at trying.

This little video also features a handy ‘how to set a corral up’ and the equipment you need for any newbies thinking of doing an overnight stop with their horse. Would be cool to hear how other people like to set up their corrals. I’d highly recommend setting up a corral and practicing at home too before you do it at an event.

I like to have the corner posts facing out so the foot pedal is facing in as that’s the direction the strain of the tape pulls, so they’re less likely to bend over and then the middle posts facing in so if a horse pushes on it for some reason it’s more likely to hold.

I have a pet hate about water buckets, I hate to see them in corners, dark corners of stables, corners in fields or in a corral. I think putting your head in a corner can’t be very nice and seeing as horses are prey animals I would have thought they’d prefer to drink somewhere with a decent view of the surroundings and away from scary stuff. Is this just me? Anyone else out there feel the same?

Azid is doing surprisingly well and is pretty happy in himself, each time the vet comes, which is every 4 days, he’s having to have more of the flap cut back because it’s healing too quickly and the skin won’t attach, this means we keep cutting through arteries and blood goes EVRYWHERE, we had so much the other day we actually scooped it up with a pooper scoop! Then we have to wait for it to clot before applying another bandage, it does make it look horrendous every time and you think you’re going backwards but long term this will hopefully mean less scar tissue and the skin will close up quicker. Azid is being very well behaved for everything but he always gets runny eyes when he’s sedated which makes him look like he’s crying as the vet chops bit off him, you can imagine that makes you feel very sorry for him and is a little bit heartbreaking to see. It’s just runny eyes though, horses don’t cry right?