What a month, dominated by the Royal Highland Show, I have been mega busy.

Tigger certainly did not disappoint at the RHS, where we went with no expectations and came home with a 3^rd and a 5^th place!! I actually cried when the judge gave me my 3^rd place ribbon, I was so, so happy and couldn’t believe we pulled in top 3 in a class of 9. The winner of both classes has been to HOYS 5 times, I mean, how can I compete with that? But we did! And we did a damn good job too, if I do say so myself. Came home super proud of my pony and with some prize money in my pocket to spend too! However, the weekend was not all smiles, have you ever tried to build a tent, on a gravel surface, about 100ft from a live runway? HA! It all adds to the experience I suppose. Thanks to the lovely man (or “saviour” as we called him for the weekend) who spent a good hour hammering his own gazebo pegs into the hardcore surface, so that our tent was at least not going to blow off! We did in the end have somewhere to “sleep” and when the planes stopped taking off at 2am, i reckon i got a good 30 mins of shut eye!

Royal Highland Show 2017

Tim Page was also at the Royal Highland, he had three horses with him and had a great weekend too. We watched him jump in the main arena on the Saturday, jumping the 1.50m Grand Prix, where a whole fence blew over as he was about a stride and a half out from it! I was filming at the time and you can hear the whole crowd gasp – poor Tim, the fence was rebuilt and he carried on as if nothing had happened, he did so well to recover from that, and so did his horse! It was amazing to watch such a high level of riding again, as it something you don’t see often without heading to the “big” shows, which, there aren’t many of in Scotland!

The infamous Honeychop Henry also made the trip to the RHS, we ran a few competitions over the weekend and had a few happy winners. He will stay with me for a few weeks and we’ll try get a few more Scottish shows under his belt, he is still getting used to the accent…

Next up is the North East of Scotland Horse Show, where Honeychop have once again very kindly sponsored the Working Hunter section, I will be on site with some prizes and free samples for everyone, and can only hope the sun shines!

Its rather soggy up here at the moment, with the sun occasionally breaking through the clouds for day. Ponies have had a couple of duvet days and are happy enough to do so. What more can you expect from Scotland? The horses are used to it – as are us riders!

One of the good things about being so busy with shows this season is that my plaiting and bathing skills have vastly improved! I stitch in my plaits now and they look far more acceptable these days than the golf balls that i used to create! I was never good at tail plaiting, some days i could assemble something that looked a little like a tail plait, other days i couldn’t even work out which bit of hair went where! Thankfully i have some awesome friends who are always on hand to help me out if i need it. I took the plunge however and got Tigger’s tail pulled for the Highland, I’m not usually one for a pulled tail but i thought since it was such a big deal for me that i would just get it done and then it’s done for the rest of the season too! Thanks to Keely for sorting us out with her awesome pulling skills. Tigger looks more and more like a show horse every day, he has put on some much needed condition, and really just needs the muscle now. WIP…

Busy month planned for July, Echt Show, Turiff Show and New Deer Show, all agricultural shows where we will be riding sideways! Hopefully Tigger will be on top form and we can enjoy the sights and sounds of an agri.

Until then!

Grace and Tigger x