I have 8 weeks left before the horses go on an extended stay to Wales and I go on honeymoon to New Zealand. In that 8 weeks I’d like to get Estrid back up and running so that she’s a bit stronger and fitter going into a winter break. She’s already had 6 weeks off to let an injury settle after she haphazardly ran through some fencing. She hasn’t lost too much fitness but she’d definitely looking more podge than hench.

I’m starting with two weeks of just walk and then I’ll introduce a small amount of trot and build it up week from week for the following 6 weeks. But ultimately our training will remain about 50% walk, 50% trot at the 8 week mark but we’ll do more time in the saddle and hopefully spend a lot of time on some hills and exploring some more varied terrain.

We’ll start with linear work for the first 3 weeks and then I’ll start introducing more circular, acceleration and change of direction stuff as she get’s stronger. But really I just want to go on nice autumn hacks with my pony and enjoy my favourite season.

On another note, my livery has space for someone with 1-3 horses, near Draycott in the clay if anyone would be interested in joining me!

My favourite time of year has arrived! Low light, golden hues, orange leaves and crisp blue skies! Which means it’s almost time to switch up the horses routine. Every year we set up a winter paddock, clean troughs, get hay feeders out and generally get ready to hunker down.

I actually really enjoy it, the routine is comforting, I love organising and planning. Plus this year there’s the added excitement of a new livery joining the yard!

After our wonderful ride at Long Mynd there was something not right about the way Estrid was moving. At the end of May she had an accident involving a lot of bucking, legs being tied together by straps and running through a few fences. Her back right was really sore, as was her back. When we got back to training she felt great, we both had a great time at Long Mynd but in the week following I just knew something wasn’t quite right with that back right.

So I decided to scrap the rest of the season give her 6 weeks off and then re-assess. Well that time has come and we made our way to the vets who even said that they were surprised to see her at the lameness clinic as she looked really good, but when you know something’s not right you just know how your horse should move.

They found a few incidental findings in the right hind that may or may not be related but still feel that the issue is higher up and quite likely a muscle strain. So now we have a couple of weeks left of her holiday and we’ll start doing walk work again and see how we go. Everyone is pretty confident she’ll be fine and I’m pretty sure I just bought her back from her accident too quickly and too soon. So we’ll take it extra slow this time and hopefully be ready to start pre-season training in full swing!

There is nothing like a good tidy and sort out to get my motivation back. I have had many thoughts over the past few years of giving up horses all together, my desire and motivation comes in waves and at the lowest points I could never see a horse again and spend my time and money on travel and adventures. Ultimately I think I’m in too deep and it’s too much a part of who I am to set it aside so easily.

But there is always one thing to guarantee a fresh start and an extra boost of motivation, and that is a good tidy and sort out. Call me strange (I am) but there’s something about it that re-sets my perspective and makes me feel ready to start again.

So it’s a good job really that I’ve been so lacklustre and have left everything everywhere and not put anything back where it should be as it’s given me the opportunity to start again!

When the ponies are off work it’s always nice to sneak in some human holiday time. We headed to Northumberland with my family for 4 days and it was lovely to just bimble around and not have an ounce of hay lurking on any part of me or my clothes!

We had a jam packed schedule of Gardens, Castles, Beaches, Dark skies, Romans and of course lots of yummy food!

I can’t believe summer just up and left, I didn’t really get the summer I hoped for but we still had lots of fun at the more local rides. I have definitely spent less time at the yard and as a result the absolute filthy chaos I made for myself to tidy is entirely my own doing. However, I do love a good clean and tidy to kick off a fresh start and what better time for a fresh start than going into a new season.

Note to self: Autumn clean would be much easier if I had done a Spring clean. But at least now the stables are ready for when the clocks change and we go back to being stabled.

A big thank you to the Derbyshire group, the ride organisers and the Ashover family for a lovely teatime spent with Tissy! Firstly the venue was lovely, you can go pick flowers and in autumn it turns into a pumpkin patch! It’s quite novel going to an organised ride at 3pm rather than 9am but I actually really liked it.

The route was another technical course and we thoroughly enjoyed the hills, roots, rocks and little quaint villages. This kind of terrain suits Tissy, she’s such a mountain goat, but even more so now where I’d like her to go a little slower, the terrain does that for me instead of it being an ongoing negotiation!

Once we finished the route we got an ice cream and drink courtesy of Ashover farm, which was a wonderful end to our day before heading back home. Derbyshire group definitely have some of the best bonus features to their social rides!

This is such a lovely ride, easy to get to, great big lovely venue, amazing route and always a good vibe. I hadn’t really paid much attention to the new Team Spirit class, but as soon as I saw it in action I knew I wanted to have a go next time! It is a 140km relay race for teams of 4. Two of the combinations ride 40km as a pair and then hand the imaginary baton over to the second pair, who ride 30km. It’s still a normal graded ride but with a mass start and the feel of a race as the time is still ticking until you vet. It looked like so much fun and something that could be a real showstopper event for all levels as you can be a Novice, Open or Advanced rider in the teams.

But for this year Tissy and I headed out on the 25km pleasure ride. Having got stung for going over the 12kph max speed once already this year I planned to throw in plenty of walk sections to bring out overall speed down. We ended up doing 47minutes of walk over about 7 different sections, a total of 4km, 1hr 25mins of trot over 20.9km and 3mins canter which gave me a speed of 11.3kph on my GPS but my vet sheet speed was just under 11kph.

We had a great time and some lovely company too! Tissy never ceases to bring the sass and astounded me with a HR of 39 at the end! It’s so wonderful to still be able to enjoy taking her out and about and I’m so grateful to be able to give her little adventures still. She just loves her job!

After Estrid did her 40km at Long Mynd I was feeling pretty confident that we might get to go to Thetford to do our first ever race and FEI event. She breezed around the course and looked great at the end but the following days she was showing signs of general stiffness. She also then managed to cut herself in the field…nicking a small artery which dramatically pulsated blood around for a bit, she must have done it just as I was walking down to give them breakfast. It didn’t seem like a big deal as it clotted quickly and it was a small wound but the next day there was a little bit of swelling.

Now I don’t know if she’d thrown some shapes and coincidentally cut herself and aggravated the injury from when she bolted through the fences or whether while she was doing whatever she was doing to cut herself she’s tweaked something new but she wasn’t looking great the next day.

We still put her race shoes on on the Friday and I had 3 days before the closing date of entries to make my decision. But the more I thought about it the more it just didn’t make sense to go. I’m in no rush, I have no goal of a 2027 Championship qualification, I don’t even have a long term goal at this point, there’s plenty more years to come and there’s only one Estrid, so I decided to give her the rest of the summer off, as my schedule doesn’t allow me to aim for any of the later races on the EGB calendar this year, and hopefully work towards doing our first race next year.

It hurts, putting so much time, effort, money and emotion into a dream, a goal, a single event for it not to happen, it really sucks. But you know what would suck more, doing something that I wasn’t 100% confident in and it backfiring with potential long-term consequences.

So with no competitions for us to aim for it seemed like now would be a good time for Estrid to have a break, for me to have a break, and then we can have a fun autumn going on some adventures and not think about ‘training’ but just go out and have some fun, before trying again next year.

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.