It has been a very stressful month with lots of opportunities but after much consideration I decided that although moving to Alex’s yard with an indoor arena would be fabulous, taking the M42 every day would not!!! After much research we found a really nice yard in Stourbridge run by Esther Banister where all the horses have now moved to. Esther’s yard is immaculate and has all the facilities any dressage horse could possibly need. My two horses Alf and Mika are to be on full livery there to give me more time to teach and ride which I am really looking forward to. I have several clinics planned and I will be returning to Lincomb to teach once a week as well. I can take in schooling liveries, sale liveries and competition liveries and Esther also takes horses to back and problem horses so between the two of us we should have everything covered!!

Alf and I have had a busy month running up to regionals, we had an excellent lesson with Isobel Wessels who gave me some really good exercises to improve his suppleness. A pre regional competition at Abbey Dressage went well with a win in the A100 with 66% and gaining 3 qualifying points in the PSG. We also ran through our freestyle with Harry Payne at Bromyard which was great fun, his lessons are always so useful and he really helped us sort out our right canter pirouette which is Alf weaker side. Harry also persuaded me to join him to train as a BD judge, something I really hope I will now have more time to do!! I’m really looking forward to having a bit more time to further my judge training and to be able to compete more.

Regionals did not go as well as I had hoped but it was my own fault!!! Alf two test were quite close together and being an older man I decided not to warm him up for too long for the first test so that he would not be tired for the second. BIG MISTAKE!!!!!! He was far too excited and powerful in the warm up and I did not have enough time to get him relaxed so he pulled like a train throughout the whole test with a huge grin on his face thinking it was a great game!!!! Two judges gave us 69% and one gave us 61% so we ended up 6th with 65% Just shows you even when you know a horse so well they can sometimes surprise you!! The PSG went better with a few mistakes in the tempi changes on a circle loosing us valuable marks. We came 3rd with 66% which I was pleased with and Alf was thrilled to take off with me again in the prize giving!! He has a wonderful sense of humour and I think he gets naughtier with age. He makes me smile every day and is a truly wonderful horse.

I am hoping Mika will be more settled in his new home and will hopefully be out competing soon once I can find the brakes again, he has so much energy and movement I sometimes wonder if I will ever be able to control it all!! He has made good progress this month so I am looking forward to doing more with him.

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