Happy New Year Eventful Life followers!
With the New Year come the New Year’s resolutions. The concept behind New Year resolutions is to reflect upon self-improvement annually … and the beginning of a New Year is the perfect time to do this.
So, it leads me to ask myself, how can I improve my blogs? A blog is a website containing a writer’s experiences, observations, opinions. They can be informational or personal. Which led me to think how can I make my blog more interesting? Rather than just posting a monthly recall of events that have happened in my life I would instead like to be more engaging. So my New Year’s blog resolution is to try and provide you with equestrian items that I am learning or have learnt each month, to pass on information that I have found useful, and perhaps you might too.
In saying that, it has been a quiet start to the year, with the horses coming back into work in dribs and drabs depending on what their year finished like in 2013. The start of the New Year also brought with it a new sponsor for me – my long standing equine therapist - Reset Equine - is expanding and has come on board to support Lush Eventing.
Nancy, the head hauncho of Reset Equine has been working with Murph on and off for a while now and even in a short time I cannot support her work enough. The difference to the horses is amazing – which has led me to really follow the mantra of what I do for myself as an athlete, do for the horses, including physio!
Murph enjoys a session with Nancy
Also this month we made use of Yalambi Stud Farm owner, Rory Hovell, being home from Europe and took Murph and Bradley over for some lessons. I have been going to Rory for a few years now to help with not only the jumping but the flat work as well. And it was a bit of a lightbulb moment/weekend, with everything that has been drilled in me the past few years starting to make sense and make a difference in the way Murph travels (although there is still A LOT of work to do!).
We did some jumping exercises on the Sunday with curving lines between a vertical and an oxer trying to keep Murph relaxed and rideable to keep the canter the same – it sounds simple, and basic, and it is, but for Murph who sights a fence from 300m away and believes he is Superman, it was a really good exercise. It also highlighted how far away from the fences Murph was landing – with Rory telling me straight “this is the difference between eventers and showjumpers”.
So what did I learn? Not only do eventers have longer take off spots, we also have a long landing spot. The solution – to put a placing rail behind the jump but not in front, forcing me to ride to a decent take off spot and to help Murph control the arc of his jump and land appropriately.
Check out the video below to see us in action.
And last but not least for the month is the arrival of a new addition! Last year I leased an older broodmare who, after many attempts, didn’t manage to fall pregnant (with everyone telling me welcome to breeding!). So she returned to the owner, and instead we purchased the mare’s daughter – an Australian Stockhorse filly named Touchstone Vegas, (see photo below) who will be broodmare for me and performance horse for Ben Mitchell later in life.
