So I was asked today how do I fit it all in - a busy full time job, two horses at a DIY yard, riding, lessons, competitions, friends, sleep........

It got me thinking about how much you really can fit into a day if you want to!

I have come to the conclusion that horsey people are a rare breed, they can get up at the crack of dawn to muck out before work with a head torch on, work all day and still look forward to finishing up and head back to the yard to ride at 8pm at night. Don't get me wrong, we don't feel like that everyday but we still get on and do it anyway!

Going back to the question of how I fit it all in, I am a super planner. I could tell you what I have on almost every weekend for the rest of the year all going well. I also have an alternate plan as we all know things don't always go to plan with horses, lorries, weather, work commitments......

Everything goes in my google diary which I can access from my phone and at work. Once I make a plan, I do everything I can not to change it or back out. If I have a lesson booked after work I will leave work at 5 to rush to the lesson but then work again later on at home to finish things up. I use my google diary to set reminders for competition entries, qualifying dates etc so I never miss anything. My lunch breaks are full of doing entries, organising farrier appointments, dentist, physio for the horses. Online entries, feed ordering etc also makes things easier.

I also record what work/lessons each horse does online too. I have a set plan for both each week - mix of schooling, jumping and hacking as everyone does but I adapt it to how my day is going - if I am super stressed from work I will have a fun session rather than schooling as although I love competing, I have my horses for enjoyment and fun at the end of the day.

I guess being realistic is also important. Through the summer when I am eventing Corky, Lucas takes a bit of a back seat as keeping them both at a good level of fitness/training to compete isn't always possible time or money wise and I would rather have one going great than two going ok. Also knowing that if I am busy with work, long hours or traveling that the horses will not be ridden as much so therefore probably won't go as well competing. Recently I have been away a lot with work and Corky's dressage has taken a step back. I need to keep reminding myself that you can't do everything and as much as my horses are my passion - my job must come first over competing as it pays the bills!

Other tips/tricks which help me would be things like using a winter turn out rug which is breathable and they can also wear in their stables overnight to save time in the morning (and it's also the best way to dry them off on those wet winter days). I fill my hay nets for the week at the weekends if I can and also use one giant net each as they are quicker and easier to fill. I bought lovely thick stable mats which have paid for themselves by the reduced amount of shavings I need to now use. They also make the beds much quicker to muck-out. Through the winter I try not to stress about how fit the boys are. I ride at the weekends and then only 2 nights in the week if I am struggling for time. I also lock everything I need for lessons etc in a tack locker in my lorry so I'm ready to go as soon as I arrive at the yard. No packing required!

I also have two secret weapons....

1. I now no longer do my own turn out in the mornings and lovely Mary does it for me. It means I can get into the office a littler earlier in the hope I can leave a little earlier! Mary also looks after the boys when I'm traveling or busy with work. She had helped me for the last 3 years so the boys love and trust her which is great. She even keeps manes and tails tidy and helps me with show prep too.

2. I have a sharer who pays me to come up and ride Lucas 2/3 days a week. She is fantastic with Lucas, he loves the extra attention, it takes the pressure off me and helps pay the bills and cover the stable duties. win-win!

All in all I definitely an a very busy person, but with good planning, prep and help it's manageable and most importantly - fun!

I've added some clips and photos from Hendersyde BE to show how much fun it can be!

Is this how it's meant to feel?





Now the pressure was on as the XC is our most consistent phase as we have never picked up a XC fault. All I could think was 'please go clear and don't get lost so we can get our first foundation point!!'

I was using an optimum time watch for the first time so that added an extra level of complexity. I used the cross country app to walk the course and work out my minute markers. It was easy to use and extremely accurate.

Walking up to the XC warm-up Corky suddenly had a new swing in his step. We popped a couple of jumps and he felt extremely keen so we went straight out onto the course. I remembered to start my watch at the 10 second count down and we were off - Corky was on fire, flying round the first few fences and didn't drop his pace the whole way round. He made everything feel easy and you could tell he was loving it. He ate up the course only chipping in once and sliding over a fence. We hit every minute marked almost exactly but I got a little mixed up with the 5 minute beep and thought it was for the finish so pushed a bit too much at the end finishing 10 seconds under the time which cost us a placing. It didn't matter though as finally we had competed all three phases well!!!

Here ia a clip of Corky flying through the water.

After seeing a vast improvement in our dressage through the winter, I couldn’t wait to get back out eventing and post some decent scores for a change. We have battled with our flatwork for the last few years so I felt great about starting to no longer feel mortified every time I walked up to check our scores.

It turns out this excitement was short lived! We posted terrible scores at our first two events of the year – all our old contact issues, poking nose comments came back and so too did the mortification! My dressage coach Karen got me to talk her through my warm-up and watched videos of our tests as she was baffled to what was going on. Our scores at pure dressage were decent enough, and our work at home was also nice. What was going on?

I think in hindsight it was a mix of me trying too hard, putting too much pressure on myself and then not actually riding well on the day because of the pressure, and associated disappointment! We were back to a dark place where neither of us wanted to do any dressage. I actually debated if it was worthwhile eventing this season, as in all honestly; I was only making up the numbers. Big thanks for my friend Bella for her help and encouragement at these first two events as I’m not sure I would have completed at Floors without her as my head was not in the game after the terrible dressage.

It felt like we had hit a brick wall so we decided to go right back to basics with our training - revisiting some basic schooling principles was the key to progression.

At home we had been working at novice level and starting to introduce some elementary movements. For BE90 it’s only a prelim level test so should surely have been easy?! We started to concentrate on the basics. We worked on use of the outside rein (which it turns out I had just stopped using?) and inside leg, lots of transitions and ensuring I was reacting quickly to soften my hands the minute things went well but also to fix things as soon as they didn’t!

After only a week of this drilling in the school things started to get easier and at our next event our scores really improved, I stopped over thinking and tried to ride soft and forward. It’s funny how a few good weeks can lift your spirits, build confidence and then actually allow to you to ride better.
My new mantra is “When you expect the worst in dressage and ride defensively, then the worst will happen!” I have also started to listen to music when practicing at home which keeps my spirits up. No one can ride defensively while singing along to Uptown Funk!

We are now a month on and things have steadily continued to get better. I have heard people talk about a positive mental attitude a lot and now finally understand what they mean. By riding positively and enjoying myself our scores have continued to improve – we have picked up qualifications for the PetPlan Area Festivals, Scottish Championships and the Celtic Dressage Championships. My qualifications are at bronze prelim which is the entry level at BD – previously I would have called it the bottom/lowest level, or said “it’s only prelim bronze” but with my new positive outlook I am now proud to tell people, it’s a great achievement for a combination who couldn’t even ride round an arena in any type of outline a few months ago.​

Moral of the blog is – stay positive, ask for help when you need it, and it’s never bad to take a step back help you move forward in the long run. It should be fun and when it stops being fun, you need to do something to make it fun again!

In preparation for our second event I booked in a dressage lesson and a show jumping lesson in the hopes of being better prepared than last week. I think I must have still been feeling a little disheartened after our poor DR at Kirrie and let it affect me in my lesson. Corky was playing up and I didn't seem to manage to sort things out as I normally can. I'd also been feeling quite overwhelmed by my schedule at work so generally wasn't in my normal positive frame of mind. Fortunately my trainer Karen sorted us out and we ended up doing some lovely work by the end of the lesson. The next night I tried to replicate the things we did in our lesson but was not quite as successful! The following night I had a jumping lesson booked with David. After an away day at work I was feeling much happier and relaxed which seemed to flow into my lesson. We worked on adding in an extra stride to set distances which helped to keep corky up and not speeding flat into the fences. He jumped really well which left me feeling super confident for the weekend.

So with some good lessons and lots of practice in the week, I felt nice and confident for the DR and SJ on Sat at Floors. I walked the XC on Fri evening after work and was left a little worried about some of the larger table style jumps, but in general the course looked great and was definitely more challenging than last year.

We arrived nice and early on Sat am - first one into the carpark! Feeling relaxed and happy we headed up to the DR. Corky started to warm up well, lots of nice relaxed stretching and he was soft when I picked him up. Unfortunately this was short lived and he then seemed to be super sharp after hearing another horse being hit with a schooling whip. He then would not settle back down, it was not the other riders fault at all, just the wee man being super sensitive as her horse didn't even seem to notice he had been hit! Sometime owning a sharp TB is not easy and definitely not one with a such a strong will like Corky. He would not settle down after that and we both got stressed out. Needless to say we rode a horrific head nodding test for 42.5 I felt like crying with frustration.

After a quick pep talk from Bella we headed to the SJ. Our warm-up went great, popping quietly over a few fences so I was very surprised and upset to then go in and take 3 poles. I won't lie - there were a few tears shed on the way back to the lorry to get ready for XC. Bella's job as groom then extended into counselor as well! She talked me off the ledge and sent me off to enjoy the XC and pull the day back for me and Corky!

​Boy she was right, he absolutely flew round the course, flying over the big galloping tables, coming back for the ditch, log, ditch combo which was causing lots of problems. The only issue we had was me and my poor sat nav!! Would you believe I got mixed up after fence 2 and thought there should be an extra one before 3 (I thought 3 was 4!!). Thankfully I realised and kicked on to 3 (double checking the number before actually jumping it!!). I have never got lost XC before but in hindsight I think it was a good think as we picked up time faults for 4 secs too slow. If we hadn't stopped looking for the mystery jump, we would definitely have been far too fast!

We had lovely times on the Sat so not too early a start. Walking the SJ and XC everything looked great. The XC was very hilly and there was a section about half way round with two corners and then onto trekenner on a curved line I was a little worried about but we had the dressage to worry about first!

I was feeling excited and confident about the dressage after the good scores we had been getting lately. I think that was our downfall! The warm up was varied, a few mins of good work, then back to our old contact issues. I worked him for 40 mins as this is usually when he does his best work at home. Our test was disappointing but fairly scored for 37.5. I decided to put it down to excitement of our first event and move on.

Off we went to the SJ where we took 2 poles :-( Chipping into the third which was a one stride double so Corky tried to put in 2 strides. We then took the next fence too as were too fast out of the disastrous double! At least we know where the mistake came from and can work on it.

While we all await the start of the Scottish event season I have spent the last few weekends at British Show Jumping with Lucas. We made our first trip through to Muirmill equestrian last weekend and were back at Rockrose this weekend. We have been trying to collect our 85cm double clears to qualify for the second rounds later in the year. We have one already but have sadly taken one pole in each of our last few attempts. It was a beautiful day through the West at Muirmill so they ran the show in their lovely outdoor arena. We entered the 80 and the 85, which in hindsight might have not been a great idea. Just as at Morris the week previous, Lucas jumped a super double clear and was placed in a very busy 80 class. We then went back in for the 85 and had a pole again – he seems to get quite a bit stronger in the second round as he is feeling more confident. This weekend at Rockrose we took a different tack and just jumped the 85 and he was double clear! I’m not sure if that’s what made the difference but I’ll try going straight in at 85 at our next show.​