I decided to level Estrid up through the distances gradually rather than do the bare minimum of what is required for EGB and FEI qualifications. I’d always been of the mindset that I wanted to put the least amount of competitive miles on my horses legs but I think the experience doing more rides of various lengths gives will be invaluable for Estrid, and now I’m not sure if FEI is financially viable for us it seems less of a priority to work our way up through to 1*.

Our first ride of the season was always meant to be a 40+km so that we would have the opportunity to try a vet gate with her. Her heart rates are always high out and about, I don’t think we’ve vetted under 50bpm yet but as I’m not concerned about Grades and trophy points, as long as it’s under 64bpm it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is how quickly we can get that HR under 64bpm and whether Estrid would cope with the slightly more rushed/stressy environment of a vet gate rather than a final vetting.

For the lower distances your crewing for the vet gate and your hold is usually at your trailer, which is slightly novel for me as I have historically only done vet gates for 80km + rides, which have a separate vet gate and hold area near the vetting. It essentially meant I needed to pack much less stuff than I would normally have on my ‘vet gate list’.

So I took my usual crew car kit of human drinks, slosh bottles, water containers, crew car feed, plain water, electrolyte water and sugar beet water. My plan was to use the same drinking buckets for Estrid for the crew car and vet gate as we’d be able to park right next to the trailer and we wouldn’t need that much water with it being a shorter distance. I added an extra plain water bucket at the trailer in case for any reason the crew car didn’t get back to the venue but thankfully that didn’t happen.

In addition I packed three water containers, two biggish water buckets, two small handled buckets, two sponges and a sweat scraper for the ‘vet gate/trailer’ crew area. Alongside three choices of feed: chaf, cubes and endurance mix, and of course a haynet. Then finally my ‘vet gate box’ which holds my spare shoes, ice boots, waterproof cover for the saddle, bandages, girth/numnah and boots for the second loop, HR monitor, lead rope and rugs.

There are things that stay in my trailer and crew car like first aid kit, tack spares, rugs, grooming box, stethoscope etc so I don’t really have to pack them. Hopefully Estrid appreciates all the extra equipment we’re taking for her and chills out for her first vet gate!

Before a competition (before the closing date for entries if possible) I will do a ‘check in’ ride. Usually 25%-ish of the competition distance just to make sure I’m happy with how my horse is going, that their heart rate recovers to below 64bpm in under 5 mins and that all our transport and equipment is as it should be.

It means that if I’m not happy with anything that close to a competition then I just withdraw and get my entry fee back. I firmly believe that in order to have a good competition the week running up to it needs to go well. I’m not saying if I stub my toe I don’t go but overall I need to be confident in our preparation, relaxed that we’re ready and have a smooth run up so that my head is in the game. I never want to go into the competition environment with doubt in my mind because it eats away at your mental grit and starts making decisions for you.

I’m happy to say that so far Estrid seems more than ready to get back on it so fingers crossed we get to finally start our 2024 Endurance season.

What a 3 months it’s been. I’ve applied my Physio rehab knowledge and we’ve had a nice steady return to the level of work we were at before our roly poly. So here’s hoping we can now progress her fitness work, increase our strength and have a few nice outings in the 2024 season.

My core principles for rehab start with something a little controversial, but something I’m seeing more and more equine Physio’s and vets adopting, and that is active recovery. We stopped box resting humans a long time ago and although you can’t tell a horse that it’s allowed out in the field only if it stays in walk and straight lines there are things I have applied to Estrid’s box rest to ensure she’s not just resting and staying still.

So while she was in her stable 24/7 I used electro muscle activation for 20mins a day to help maintain her muscle tone and activation. We did daily carrot stretches, pelvic tilts and tummy lifts. We used wobble cushions to shift weight and activate joint stability and we hand walked on a hard surface in straight lines.

I then break my rehab down into 3 week blocks (normal training I use 6 week blocks) and focus on one pillar of fitness at a time. For example 3 weeks of walk increasing the time by 50% a week. Then 3 weeks of strength, adding in hills and poles to the walk work. Then 3 weeks of adding change of direction such as circles and lateral work. I then increase the intensity by raising the poles to make it more challenging and bringing in trot work but not increasing the overall time of the sessions and never introducing more than one new element a week.

Our rehab has been fairly linear in it’s progression so I’m hoping we’re out the other side but this is horses so anything could happen. I’m confident that I have done everything I could do to get her back to where we were. Now we start ‘training’ instead of rehabing and see what happens.

We’ve put out 225 vlogs over the last 4 years, the idea was to document my journey of getting a horse from Novice to FEI in Endurance. It hasn’t quite panned out that way, with 4 novice seasons later but I’ve really enjoyed having the footage to look back on and I know that in decades time I’ll enjoy watching it all over again. We wanted to put more positive information about endurance out there and hopefully, maybe, encourage people to give it a go as there wasn’t really anyone in the YouTube space who did Endurance.

In those 4 years we’ve never missed an upload, most the time you just film what you’re up to organically but sometimes you have to prep videos in advance if you’re away or busy etc. They take a little bit of extra effort to film and then about 1-2 hours to edit every week but I really enjoy it as a creative outlet.

With Estrid injured and Tissy living a much more relaxed life these days I thought it would be a good opportunity to have some time off making videos. I’m not sure how long for or whether it will be a permanent decision but for the first time in 4 years I just don’t feel like filming and the idea of a tech/social media detox seems to be what I need right now. Hopefully we’ll be back soon but for now thank you to everyone who has followed along, encouraged us, asked questions, sent me pictures of their first endurance ride and created a lovely little community in our corner of the internet.

As anyone who knows her would predict, Tissy had a fabulous time doing 16km at the Maplewell Endurance ride. Thank you to Sport Endurance for managing to pull the ride off in very very very wet conditions, we really appreciated exploring part of the countryside we’d never been to before.

It started off pretty well with some millimetre perfect trailer reversing under pressure from me (anyone else a pro trailer reverser and then one day it’s like you’ve never done it in your life, the fear that it will happen is always there). We then proceeded to have lovely weather over some great tracks. We took it a little slower than usual as Tissy isn’t long back in work but as per usual she was up for it and pretty cross about the slower speed.

I grinned the whole way around and we then finished off with a Burger and cake. So all in all everything went perfectly. The journey, the parking, the ride, the food. I really appreciated a drama free fun day.

I was pretty down in the dumps about Estrid missing the Cannock chase ride due to injury but actually it didn’t slap me like it used to. In the many pony injuries over the last 10 years, a kind of silver lining, is that I appreciate just getting to the start line of a goal, I genuinely feel happiness and relief when I just make it to a venue, never mind expecting to actually complete it.

Estrid fell over the Tuesday before the ride, when we both took a tumble in the school, and then she came in from the field 3 days later with heat in her leg and looking really stiff. She may have tweaked something in the fall and aggravated it in the field or they may be completely unrelated but one thing was certain we would not be competing until I was 100% happy with her.

For major injuries I would always call a vet, but for stiffness and heat I tend to wait 1-2 weeks (if it’s safe to do so and not at the detriment of the horse) before getting veterinary intervention. Same for minor grazes, I would treat them myself, whereas a puncture wound near a joint or something that needs stitches, I would get the vet straight away.

So for now when there’s heat but no swelling, she’s happy to weight bear and she isn’t reactive to touch or joint movement we’ll wait it out and if she doesn’t improve go see our vets. It’s times like these where I wish I had my own yard, so that I had more control over the lifestyle of my horses. I’d love her to be on a hard standing area to eat her hay and have access to roam around the field. She spins around if left in the stable too long and the field is supper boggy so neither are great options, but for now she’s staying out as I think that’s the better of the two. Fingers crossed its just a tweak and she makes a speedy recovery.

It was great to be back on my trusty steed for our first after work hack of 2024. Although Tissy is less than enthusiastic about hacks from home and even less so about, what she considers a pointless gait, having to walk the majority of it. She’s always been this way, this pony loves adventure, spontaneity and speed. She is not one to enjoy a casual plod around the block.

Unfortunately for Tissy, a casual plod around the block is a requirement for being able to go on adventures. So were building her work back up slowly so that we can head to some nice pleasure rides.

She’s not maintained as much weight as I would have hoped over winter and is a little skinnier that she should be. But with the grass starting to grow I’m hopeful that she’ll maintain and improve her condition. Improving her muscle bulk and fitness will only help with her overall health too.

I too often have a schedule to stick to, training to complete, jobs that need doing. So when I have a day that I have decided will be a no adulting, no timetable, no pressure day it is absolute bliss.

I decided to go for a slow 5km chilled out hack on Estrid in the sunshine. I cleaned a saddle I’d been meaning to sell since June last year. I gave Tissy a bath ready for her to start being ridden and I did all of it just because, not because I’d written a list that needed completing or had a deadline to stick to or a goal to aim for, and that feeling was actually really nice.

My brain would not cope with this strategy long term. I need structure and lists and schedules to keep all the plates spinning and reduce the feeling on trying to keep everything in my head at once, but every now and again on a rare day with nothing planned, it’s really nice to just do whatever I want to do, just because.

It was so nice to start the 2024 endurance season with a little outing to the Derbyshire groups social ride at Crich Tramway. Thank you as always to everyone who helped put on the ride and it always amazes me how many smiley helpers the Derbyshire group manage to muster out on course so that we didn’t have to do a single gait!

Estrid has come on leaps and bounds in the last year but she still struggles when we ride out with Fluffy…I have no idea why as she doesn’t do this with any other horse, but it’s like she’s moving with the handbrake on and she stops at the strangest things. By herself she’s super forward and never stops, with other horses she doesn’t like them along side and is tentative to overtake, but with Fluffy it’s super hard to get her to overtake other horses on course and she just doesn’t feel like she wants to go. So our 17km together was a little frustrating but it was still an excellent training ride with some good hills and everything is good venue practice.

I was hoping that as she’s got so much more confident by herself and has so much more experience that she wouldn’t be like that with Fluffy this season but it’s like she reverts back, so we may have to avoid adventures with Izzy and Fluffy as I don’t want her to learn to go in that way. Though I’m sure Tissy will be thrilled to hear that as it means she gets to go on all the adventures that we’re taking Izzy and Fluffy on instead of having to share with Estrid.

I took Estrid to her first training session around Cannock chase and I was thrilled with her! There was a tree across our path which meant I couldn’t go along the usual track and so I got entirely lost in the woods trying to find a way around, she went over all sorts of terrain, cambers, steep slopes, boggy bits, rocky sections, the lot and she didn’t put a hoof wrong, not once did she question me and I really enjoyed spending time exploring with her.

For me a short training session is 5-10km, medium 10-20km and long would be 20km+. So really we did a medium training ride as we covered 17km and spent just over 2 hours in the saddle, but this is double what we have been doing so a great place to start the ‘proper’ endurance training, it was also much more technical terrain and steeper than we have been focusing on so more than hard enough work for Estrid who actually completed the session with ease!

I’m slowly building her up with lots more hill work this season compared to last year as we’re hoping to do our first 80km. We don’t really have much access to decent hills (this is where I miss living in Wales) but I’m hoping to trailer out at least twice a month to get some good ascents in. We will probably use the gallops about once a month, for a bit of slow continuous work, especially with the variable weather making ground conditions tricky. I still want to do a bit of cross training with our schooling and some jumping, just to keep things fun and take a bit of (self induced) pressure off our endurance goals and mix it up with fun experiences.