Ladies Day at Hickstead dawned bright and clear – and it didn’t actually rain!  I look forward every year to a day at the Royal International Horse show, watching Show Jumping from the BHS box overlooking the main arena, and meeting up with friends. It has now become an annual event for the Campbells, Anne and I.  We arrived just after 10am, and parked close to the trade stand area just over five minutes’ stroll…

Myerscough International Arena, 20th June 2019 The topic of the day was ‘Suppleness and Straightness within the Jump Arena’. We were all looking forward to Andrews’s wealth of knowledge and experience, plus the opportunity to catch up with friends and fellow peers. The morning started with a couple of hours of flatwork, Andrew worked with horses of various levels, and throughout, the theme was ensuring the rider maintained their own balance and posture, therefore enabling…

How lucky were we to wake up to a glorious sunny morning in Co Kildare, for our Irish F and I day. On arrival to Jessica Harringtons yard at 10 o’clock , we found that we had only missed one lot as they do not start till 8 as many of the staff have yards of their own. Our first vision was the infamous Sizing John, Gold Cup winner in 2017. Sizing John was just…

A fascinating and informative day It was a drizzly day to begin with, but as we started in the barn where the stocks are, we all kept dry. There was a maximum number of ten people which made sense when I realised how we were going to read scans to determine various different stages of pregnancy, also check for twins and the later scan to check for a heartbeat – we had a fabulous selection…

A small but high quality group of F&I members and guests gathered at Bramham. We headed up to fence 1 to meet Bramham course designer Ian Stark FBHS. 2019 marks Ian’s tenth year as course designer – when asked whether he was on a fixed term Ian revealed that when the compulsory retirement age for course designers was recently raised to 72, Bramham’s reply was ‘that’s great, we have you for another 7 years!’.  Ian’s…

Ann Bostock wanted help with the canter work for her 18yr old RoR. Judy addressed this by helping the horse to become more comfortable in his surroundings and worked to get him supple around Ann’s leg. This enabled him to let go in all three paces and lessened the need to ride him so forward. Jenny Ward brought her big, beautiful 13yr old who she is competing at Inter 1. Judy initially worked on improving…

Friday morning was bright and clear with a chilly wind as 14 members and their guests set off for an insight to Eric Winters’ imposing XC course, running in a clockwise direction, with Nick Turner FBHS. This year Nick promised us that it wouldn’t be a “route march”, but our fit group managed to overtake two other groups on the way!! The first four fences set the horses and riders up for what was to…

What a fantastic day we had at Wellington on Friday,  courtesy of David of course!  We were all very pleased to be using the fantastic indoor facilities on such a windy day! All I can say is ‘wow’ – so many exercises and so much to take in.  The hour’s lessons were jam packed – each different to suit the different levels of horses. Caroline brought a selection of ‘cavaletti’ jumps,  skinny brushes and shoulder…

Opened by Lord Gardiner the Under Secretary State for Rural Affairs and Biosecurity, the National Equine Forum yet again excelled in offering everyone opportunity to learn about so many important topics that influence and affect the Equine industry in both the UK and abroad. The announcement that the value of the UK equine industry is internationally recognised as worth an estimated £8 billion per year with overseas at £400 million, alongside being the 4th largest…

Tuesday was an early start for Sue Ricketts and I and when we arrived at Addington at 8am we learnt our first thing…do not arrive early, you get accosted to write the report! My focus over the course was Corinne Bracken who was our jump trainer this year.  I had never had the opportunity to observe her before but had only heard good things, so I sat down with my notebook and was suitably impressed…