Tissy and I had a great time at the Barbrook social ride! It’s such a varied and technical course with stunning views and changing scenery. I opted to do the 32km but then shortened it to 26km by not doing the 6km farm ride at the end. I just decided that as much as she would have enjoyed it, that Tissy would have wanted to canter the lovely grassy fields and she’d done enough for the day.

It’s the first time she’s actually wanted to walk while out and about rather than go a million miles an hour and I see that as a sign for us to slow down and take it a bit easier. Don’t get me wrong she had her ears pricked and wanted to trot and canter everywhere, but when I asked her to walk she actually happily walked on a loose rein.

She looked really good at the end, if I do say so myself, and I’m excited for her to have a couple more adventures before the summer is over.

This ride had an added bonus to the excellent route, a complimentary sausage bap, or sausage cob if you’re from Derbyshire. It was a really lovely cherry on the cake before we made the journey back home.

I wanted a good ride to test Estrid following her accident, before I went ahead and made any decisions with regards to the rest of the season. I have always wanted to try the Long Mynd ride and it was the perfect timing for a run out for us.

It was spectacular! It got me in the feels right from the start. I’m originally from Mid Wales and the landscape reminded me of home, spending hours in the mountains with Tissy, without a care in the world or a time I had to be back for.

This ride had hills, technical ground, bouncy grassy canter stretches, steep climbs, incredible views, wild ponies and plenty of familiar endurance family faces. It also had some stony tracks, a bit of road work and a fair amount of gates but it is 100% worth it and definitely doesn’t detract from the overall experience.

I don’t think I’ll ever not be relieved to pass the initial vetting heart rate with Estrid, she was wired! Which is actually pretty nice that she knew where she was and was excited to get out. She was tanking over the first 20km, which does make me question what she’ll be like in a mass start, as soon as she has eyes on a horse ahead she’s like a homing missile and it takes some considerable convincing to not speed off at full pelt.

The second 20km she settled into a good rhythm and I got to really enjoy the experience and take in the views. We rode mostly alone but also did some stretches with others and it was so nice that she actually managed to go side by side and overtake without planting her feet.

I was really happy with how she felt, our speed and her general behaviour. Her boot rubbed her leg really badly and I felt so guilty but hopefully it won’t cause her any problems going forward and I’ll certainly not be using those boots again. Although she absolutely aced the hilly terrain and there’s no question about her fitness and strength there’s still something I’m not 100% sure about as to what to do next. So we’ll see what the next week brings and hopefully make a decision once she’s seen the Physio.

Everyone touch some wood but Estrid is doing well coming back into training at the moment. More or less starting where we left off, 6 weeks off isn’t the end of the world for horse fitness and Estrid certainly hasn’t lost much at all. So we’re focusing on improving her core and muscle tone, as this is where she definitely regressed during her injury recovery.

At the moment 4 training sessions a week is working well for my horse-life balance and for Estrid. For this week I had one pole session, one water treadmill session and two ridden work.

Estrid has found both her 80km rides pretty easy physically so I have no doubt about her capability to up the distance. It’s not the perfect prep that I would have liked but there is a part of me that thinks f**k it, you might as well enter while your horse is sound and see what happens, then another part of my brain says ‘there’s no rush, no need, wait until the prep is perfect’. I can see reason in both and doing or not doing 100km will not be to the detriment of my horse.

There are so many factors to consider, cost, prep, timing of the farrier etc but at the end of the day I need to remember that it’s meant to be fun, I’m meant to look forward to an event and enjoy the run up. So for now we train, and in a couple of weeks the decision will be made.

I should have gone to Oakover, I’m kicking myself that I didn’t, but my catastrophising brain took over and we bailed last minute. It’s not often that I ever let myself back out of anything, I don’t naturally have much oomph to get going on things but once I’m doing anything then I tend to enjoy it and see it finished, so I’m quite strict with myself about just starting or going to anything.

But when I woke up to torrential rain that continued for 3 hours with my weather app saying it would last another 3 hours with lightning to boot, I started to worry that my van, which is 2 wheel drive, wouldn’t be able to get off the venue field. I had an internal war of ‘6hrs of rain = very slippy top grass’ logic Vs ‘it’s been dry for weeks, it’ll be fine’ logic and the catastrophising brain won.

Turns out it stopped raining at 9am, there was no lightning and everyone who went had a wonderful time. I was left kicking myself for the rest of the day. We still went out in the trailer and got the same distance but Oakover is one of my favourites and I’m so sad to have missed it for no reason, and feel guilty for having a spot that someone else could have taken.

There we go, we live and learn, I will now use this for any future brain farts, and just remind myself of the feeling of missing Oakover to get my butt out the door.

It seems that what I want to do on my birthday hasn’t changed since about the age of 2…I was yet to become a teenager when I first rode Tissy on a birthday and two decades later nothing has changed.

What better way to have a chilled out day than ride your pony, go for ice cream and eat birthday cake on a nice walk!

I feel like I had such good momentum going into this season, I was in a nice routine, I felt motivated and excited. Then as ever with horses, the curveball of Estrid’s run in with a fence threw a spanner in the works. Estrid has had 6 weeks off and now we only have 6 weeks to prepare for Thetford, the only FEI ride left for the 2025 season in the UK, and I don’t know if we’re going to make it.

One thing I actually like about myself is that when motivation is lacking I am very disciplined, so although I don’t feel like pulling myself together and getting back into a training routine, I’ll still do it anyway. The reason I hesitate to aim for a 1* this season is that it’s a lot of time, effort and money to spend if I’m not 100% happy with the preparation.

I’m thinking of doing a national 80km CER instead but then a little bit of me thinks ‘I might as well do the extra 20km and do a 1*’. I guess we shall see how the next few weeks go and make the decision closer to the closing date of the ride. For now I’m going to fake it ’till I make it and hope that I get my mojo back!

The whole process of entering an FEI ride can be a bit daunting so I thought I’d go through what I had to enter Estrid and I to our first FEI ride (even if we didn’t get to go this time).

First of all we’ve completed our Novice FEI qualifications which are two rides of 40-79km and two rides of 80-100km at under 16kph. The first ride must not be less than 1 year and 6 months before the first 1* and all four rides must be done within a 3 year period. You don’t have to be registered with the FEI to do these, they are normal EGB national rides.

Next up we had to register with the FEI. This can be done by going to the FEI services page on the EGB website and selecting FEI horse registration and FEI rider registration. You then pay £50 to register and upload all the relevant passport pages.

At this stage if you are competing on home soil you don’t need an FEI passport until you’re up to 3* level. Once you’ve paid for FEI registration EGB will send off your Novice qualifications for verification and you’ll get your FEI ID number which allows you access to the FEI horse app.

For entering FEI rides in the UK you just use the EGB events page and enter as you normally would. My entry fee for my 1* was £215, the reason for the increase in price from national to FEI is under FEI rules the ride organiser needs more officials to run the ride, such as FEI qualified vets, and foreign officials so you’re paying for the increased running costs of the event.

The other thing that is slightly different about entering an FEI ride is in the week before you have to record AM and PM temperatures for your horse, this is for bio-security and to ensure no one brings an unwell horse to an event. When you arrive at the venue a Vet will check the temperatures, scan the microchip of your horse and check the passport.

In terms of the actual ride and vetting it is run very much the same as national events and if you’ve completed your four national rides you’ll know the drill! It’s well worth downloading the FEI rule app and making sure you understand the rules before jumping into FEI, it seems a bit daunting at first but I make my own notes about the bits relevant to me and it helps me understand them.

Estrid was very lucky to win a ‘Spa day’ at Saywell Equestrian when she won the Performance formula at Haywood Oaks back in March. After her injury it seemed like the perfect time to use our prize.

The yard was super friendly and such a nice set up. We started off in the Equusir best box, followed by the magnetic field blanket and then the Salt therapy room. Each treatment was 20minutes and although Estrid was having one of her morse stressy days and didn’t really seem to appreciate it, it was still super interesting to see all the elements.

Here’s the report that the Equusir best box collated about Estrid:

Unfortunately 6 days after the high of Windsor, after looking so great despite the tough course, Estrid decided to deliver a low, and bolt through a post and rail fence and an electrical wire fence sustaining multiple injuries. Just 2 weeks out from our planned first FEI 1* event, so onto Plan B it is!