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A dressage arena can look simple from the outside: four rails, a level surface, and a set of letters marking the movements. From the saddle, however, each…

I thought I knew what I was walking into when Archie and I arrived for the dressage phase of our eventing competition. The test was familiar enough to feel…

Braiding Archie before an event used to feel like a race against the clock. I would arrive with a tidy plan, a full grooming kit, and a horse who had other…

Competition mornings begin long before I point Archie toward the start box. Even when the venue is familiar, the combination of early alarms, loaded trailers,…

I did not start using a neck strap because I wanted another piece of equipment to think about. Archie and I already had enough to manage when preparing for a…

A drop fence asks a horse to change balance, stride, and height within a very short space. When the going is deep, that task becomes more demanding because…

A long show jumping round can look deceptively simple from outside the arena. The course may only take a couple of minutes to complete, yet those minutes…

Eventing has a way of turning one competition into a long chain of small jobs. Before Archie and I ever enter the start box, I need to read the schedule,…

The coffin was supposed to be one of the straightforward fences on our cross-country route. It was built into a shallow dip, with an entrance, a few strides of…

The centerline is only a few metres wide, but it has a remarkable influence on the whole dressage test. When Archie and I enter at A, those first strides tell…