Smash at the Vicki Roycroft Clinic Photo courtesy Sarah Walker Photography
It's easy to say that this year’s Christmas was one of our family's best yet. Our house was the destination and everyone converged with cars full of people, food, presents and good cheer! There were only a few days respite for the ponies with me swinging my leg over the cantle again on Boxing Day. Siz came back into work and took a GREAT dislike to the net mum has erected over the raspberry bush and took quite a bit of convincing to go near the bottom half of the arena...
On New Year's Day we all packed up and took four horses, the ute and a four wheeler down to Bellingham Beach near Bridport for an overnight beach ride with three other families to celebrate the New Year. It wasn't without issues (my horse tended to be quite exuberant and we may have been on one beach illegally... Oops) however we all had a great time racing the motorbikes, climbing sand dunes and floundering at midnight in huge rock pools (yes! We caught a flounder in a rock pool and it was big!).
Then it was on... Five days of clinics, I taught at a Pony Club camp for two days, an event on the Sunday and the girls had two respective PC camps on as well. ALL in the practically the SAME WEEK!!!
Siz at the Vicki Clinic Photo courtesy Sarah Walker Photography
SUNDAY: Vicki Roycroft Prydes Easifeeds State Eventing Squad Clinic.
What an opportunity for we Tasmanians! Vicki was just amazing and on the first day she set up three jumps and worked on position, the horse’s way of going and the ride to the fence, over and after. Each lesson was intensive and brimming with information. What I liked most was that Vicki explained in detail why she was asking us to do certain things rather than saying 'because I said so'. This really cemented the new concepts and helped us really understand WHY which is a very important thing to have when doing anything with your horse.
MONDAY: Day two of the Vicki Roycroft Prydes Easifeeds Clinic. On this day we set up a course and practiced everything we learnt the day before except over a course of eight jumps. This was fantastic again as we got to practice everything we learnt the day before but got to see how the concepts work in a competition type set up.
I would like to say a BIG thankyou to Prydes Easifeeds for sponsoring the Tas Eventing Squads and helping us get such a wonderful coach like Vicki to our little state! Thanks must go to the lovely Katie Classon for making this all come together, and for taking the trip over the Strait to visit us at the clinic, and hand out uniforms.
Siz at the Heath clinic doing baby pirouettes (I am attempting to help with 'lightness' with my flapping chicken wings)
TUESDAY and WEDNESDAY: Heath Ryan Clinic. Poor Siz and Smash now had two days of full throttle dressage! As always Heath puts the pressure on and gets us to think of the bigger picture. I was told I needed to chase down some riders and that I needed to be 'Gooder' (we are already 'good' he said, now we need to become 'good-er'). It was a fantastic clinic and I am definitely motivated to get my horses going to the best of their abilities!
THURSDAY and FRIDAY: Coaching at Leven PC Camp. So after having four days of information overload I got to OFFload some onto the students!
SATURDAY: Lucy Bennett Clinic. Every fortnight Lucy makes the trip up from Hobart to our place for two days of lessons from her regulars. As always her insight and high expectations get us to always strive for that bit better roundness, walk, trot, canter and shape over a fence!
SUNDAY: Quercus ODE. This was Smashy's first event (Prenov) with me and I was feeling pretty good about it. Wellll...... Yeahhh .... I was equal first after dressage and nearly cracked the 70% which I was pretty stoked about as he was performing to about half of what he is capable of!
Smashy going super before our little tumble! Photo courtesy APT Photography
Then I walked the XC and was a little apprehensive as it was very, very tough (small in height but technical) but I figured I would give it a go and it would depend on if he reverted back to the old Smash or if he performed like he has been lately. Unfortunately he was as hot as mustard in the warm up and was very spooky over the first few jumps on course however he settled into a rhythm and got better and better as he went on.
Even the tough brush, ditch, brush combination that pulled a few up was done with only a little hesitation! I knew that if we got past the water we would be fine... But that was where we came unstuck... Literally. Smashy said NOPE and I (rather gracefully, if I say so myself) stepped off at the edge of the drop! So that was it for us I'm afraid but a lot of positives also came out of that event like how much potential he has on the flat despite that being our first ever test together and the fact that we got it together for most of the course despite him being worried at the start! And I also need to do lots more XC schooling and do some harder combinations than I think I needed too.
So that was my crazy week... The week after that I started my new job at the local poppy factory (which I was pretty stoked about as it is just down the road!) and I taught at my last camp for the year at Fernpark PC. Next on the agenda is the TEC ODE which Sizzle is doing his first 2** (EEK!! Wish me luck!!) and Smash will have another crack at the Prenov! And then Huntingfield ODE which Smash will do the Prenov and Poppy will do the intro.
So until next time,
Alice 
PS I am also keeping up with the latest fashion trends (see my poor jods after doing some skids on my knees)
