Our final prep before the pre-season begins is to clip ready for the harder sweatier work. If anyone has any recommendations for improving the finish of my clip, I am all ears, as I think Estrid is a bit embarrassed about looking like a zebra!

Just for a bit of fun before the real training starts I wanted to take Tissy & Estrid out for a spin. I don’t ordinarily ride & lead but on this occassion we did for a bit of fun. All the route is on private land with gates along the way so no one could go far or meet any traffic.

Tissy loves having a blast up from the river, she’s done that route and cantered up that hill since she was 4 years old. I didn’t fancy leading at canter so I let her off, I was amazed that she waited for me to give her the voice command for canter before she belted off and she stopped at the top of the hill and came straight back to us!

What a year 2024 has been! A rollercoaster as usual, but what year isn’t when you have horses. I’ve worked more hours than ever but I’ve also had some of the best adventure packed holidays.

We got off to a wobbly start to the endurance season so didn’t really get going until June, but from there out every outing has felt like a bonus and Estrid flying round her first 80km was the cherry on top. Tissy has stayed active and enjoyed her little adventures, it’s tough watching her age but I appreciate every moment I get to enjoy with her.

Thank you to all who have supported me. My family and HUSBAND (that tiny thing of getting married also happened this year) as usual have been there to help and cheer us on and I can’t wait to see what next year brings.

The social media algorithm hit me hard over the last few months as I’ve seen so many beautiful hiviz biothane bridles from Pioneer Endurance going up on the website and off to new homes.

I then saw that the hiviz comes in white, opening up the opportunity for navy and white tack (My fave colour scheme) so I popped a winter training hiviz bridle and breastplate on my wishlist. Zoe made me the most beautiful bridle and I can’t thank her enough as I absolutely love it. Christmas pennies will definitely be saved to add a breastplate!

It’s such a good addition to my hiviz and safety as we head into winter and the real pre-season training begins!

In my head I break down my horsey life into three distinct phases. Pre-season winter; where there’s no competitions but I’m actively training the horses and focusing on fitness. In-Season; where we’re training and competing, and then Off-season winter; Where I’m riding for fun occasionally but mainly just giving the horses a break.

I am firmly in our off-season phase, the horses shoes are off. I ride, maybe, once a week, maybe not at all. In this phase they are stabled at night (in pre-season they’re stabled in the day) and out in the day and they take up about 1.5 – 3hrs of my time a day, which is basically the least amount of input they require year round.

I get to the yard just after 6am and turn them straight out in the field. We’re still lucky enough to not need much haylage out in the field as there’s still a fair amount of grass left but the mud is starting to turn up uninvited! I then muck out both stables, which are on a mix of equinola chopped straw and straw pellets. Then I prep the mash feeds for later and head on home to get ready for work.

I work 8-4 and have a 30minute commute to work. I then go straight to the yard from work, pull the beds down, fill the haynets, make the feeds and bring the ponies in. So pretty low maintenance really!

With weather cancelling Tissy’s last opportunity to go to a pony party this year I had been looking for alternatives so she could still have a fun outing. Somerford is just over an hour drive from me and I’d heard good things about their farm ride, with hardstanding parking and plenty of groomed track I thought it would be a great option for Tissy to get out and explore somewhere new.

I am so glad we made the effort to go, when it would have been so easy to go somewhere closer, cheaper, easier etc. Tissy had the best time and the track was amazing. I’m definitely going to come back for some training with Estrid next season. It’s undulating, twisty and turny in places, plenty of good canter sections and great underfoot. So perfect endurance training.

Although I have had a stable the last few years to accommodate for Tissy’s need for mash as a haylage replacement. I haven’t had to have her in and I’ve had other horses on full grass livery, so it’s been very flexible.

This year as part of the livery changes and in an effort to preserve the fields both my horses will be stabled daily for half the day. Now I still have lots of flexibility in terms of timing, it can be overnight, in the day and there are no set hours or timings.

This means I do have a new stable, so it was time to get everything prepped and ready for the switch to the winter routine. I’m actually quite excited in terms of the routine of it, a little apprehensive about the horse management side, ideally I would love to have my horses somewhere they can choose, in a field with others and a big barn/field shelter with ad lib forage and access as they wish. This is how our horses were kept at home when I was growing up and it’s how I believe we can keep them happiest. However, when you don’t have your own land it’s just not practical and there are many situations where it’s not possible. So fingers crossed Estrid settles into stabled life fairly quickly and we make it through the winter happy and healthy!

Dan and I got married in October. It was the happiest day of Tissy’s life as she feels she is now guaranteed butt scratches and extra treats for life from Dan. I was pretty pleased too.

I wanted to make this video for myself, to look back on, but also as a reminder to Dan of how much he means to me and how grateful I am for all his support in absolutely everything but particularly how he has fully embraced being a horsey girl husband from the very start.

Now the tack room has had a spruce up it was time to put my stuff back in. I was determined that I would only put the essentials that were used day to day back and anything else could go back in storage or sold/donated. My storage is in a loft up a pull down ladder so it’s not easy access. I’m the kind of person that if there are too many barriers in the way it get’s put to the side to ‘do it later’ until I have a pile of dusty rugs that should have gone back in the box 3 weeks ago…

I want to feel streamlined in the kit that I have but I also don’t want to get rid of decent stuff that may one day come in useful and would cost me a fortune to re-acquire. So I came up with a little rule system for myself: Is it used at least once a week? Yes, in the tack room. No: Is it seasonal? Yes, into storage. No: Will it cost more than £50 to re-purchase if needed. Yes, into storage. No: Sell or donate.

I’m quite pleased with what made it back into the tack room but I definitely need to do a savage sort out of what’s in storage. Sounds like a spring, future Beth job to me!

I love a good organise, clean out and spruce up. When the livery I’m on decided to downsize and as the saddle racks in the tack room freed up one by one the tack room started to look a little sad. So those of us remaining decided it was the perfect opportunity to give it a make over.

It got a lick of paint, the addition of some little windows, a new hardware layout and some bird proofing to hopefully stop quite so much bird poop covering all our stuff when they migrate back to the UK next year.

I’m a nerd and I love a good stat. I love to track training, expenditure, anything and everything really. I was curious as to how much extra competing added to the cost of my horses. I’m not taking into account the ‘usual’ costs such as livery, feed, Physio, Farrier, Vaccinations, Dentist etc. but just the competition specific costs.

First off EGB Membership for the year cost me £77

I then spent £466 on entry fees. That was for 3 GER’s I attended, one I never made it to and 6 pleasure or social rides. The costs ranged from £20 to £77 and two of those entries also included camping and corralling in the fee.

Training fees for riding out and about cost me £178. One subscription for an all you can ride season pass on a 4km grass field ride near our yard and 5 one off venues such as gallops, farm rides and lessons.

Fuel was my far my biggest expenditure and the trickiest to work out accurately, but I spent £802 to get to training, events and for the crew car.

Competition food for the humans cost £100. I haven’t worked out the extra horse feed but maybe something to geek out over next year.

I then spent £91 on competition photos over 5 separate orders.

Lastly I had the additional cost of padding and pinning our shoes for two shoeing cycles which added an extra £200 to our usual farrier fees.

In total my 2024 endurance season cost me £1,895. I think a rather reasonable sum considering the time spent riding and the fun we’ve had. It surely must be the best value for money equestrian sport in terms of cost per minute riding right?