Jumping December!

Happy New Year Everyone!

       Christmas Day Hack

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year and ate lots of mince pies and managed to spend lots of time with your family, friends and four legged friends!

December for me on the horse front was all about the jumping.  Having worked hard at home to get the jumping where I wanted it to be it was time to put everything in to practice at some shows, and I am pleased to report we had some good results even managed a few cheeky clear rounds!

First up was some mid week clear round at Bury Farm, Bury is literally ten minutes from where I keep Mikey but for some reason I have hardly competed there at all, the jumping was in the indoor arena so was a new environment for us but Mikey felt great, really forward, ears pricked ready to go.  We had a pole down in the first round due to me not riding straight but determined to go home with a ribbon we went straight back in and managed a clear round second time round.  I was delighted!

We also popped over for some show jumping at Quainton Stud, I really like their outdoor arena as it’s huge, and there is lots of space to get your horses nice and   forward, the course was a bit windy so I was a bit worried how it would effect our rhythm but we managed a pretty decent round, taking down just one pole when I over rode a line in to a fence, we wobbled a bit and the pole rolled.

    Arena Eventing Onley Showground

Last up for jumping was some Arena Eventing at Onley Showground hosted by Lands Eventing.  I had heard really good things about the events Lloyd from Lands puts on and I was not disappointed! There had been a lot of effort put in to the course, and it rode great.  I was a little nervous as there were quite a few skinnies in the course and I hadn’t practiced any before the show.  Mikey did go a bit tense on me as we went in to the arena, but I gave him a pat and told he we could do it.  And we do.  We went clear and managed 4^th place!  I was over the moon.

                    XC Fence at Arena Eventing Onley

I had a great time at Olympia this month too, don’t know about you but it definitely starts to feel like Christmas when it’s Olympia!

Last up with month was a Centaur Biomechanics clinic with Milton Keynes Riding Club, I have seen Russell who runs Centaur Biomechanics in demos and really like his work, so I decided to book on to the clinic and get “analysed”. Watching yourself back in slow motion on the TV screen is a bit daunting but I found it really useful and a few alterations in my position made a huge difference, like a lot of riders I tend to tip, more so to the right, and have always just tried to focus on “sitting up” however Russell suggested trying to stretch through my rib cage upwards, just that subtle difference made a huge improvement in the picture, so will be taking that with me moving forward to try and make it become second nature.

Unlike me who is hitting the gym hard to shift those Christmas pounds (aren’t we all!!) Mikey is now enjoying a couple of weeks down time before we pick back up again and at the end of January we are heading down to Honeychop’s Sponsored Rider Tim Page for a few days training, I am really excited for that and will report back next month!

Until next month

Laura and Mikey x