Posts
A few months back I arrived at a country event around lunchtime, unloaded Archie, and walked the dressage ring while the warm-up was still in chaos. Within ten…
I have been riding for most of my life, but it took me a while to realise that the longest conversations I have about my own riding happen when Archie is tied…
There is a particular kind of sick feeling that arrives about fifteen minutes before your dressage test, when you reach for your bridle and discover the buck…
Archie and I came back from a school at a mate's property outside Camden looking like we'd done a dressage test in a swamp. The tyres on the float had a…
The first time Archie shot his ears flat back at a fence, I nearly wrote it off as a bad mood. We were schooling a simple vertical at the local agistment in…
The alarm went off at 4:15am, which is normal for a horse show weekend. Archie had been clipped, plaited, and loaded by half past four, and we were on the M1…
Packing my overnight bag for a horse trial with no on-site lodging is a small operation in itself. Archie may have the float, hay, water, tack room and a…
With Archie, warming up is never a ritual I repeat without thought. The work we do before a dressage test has a different purpose from the work we do before a…
The minutes before a cross-country round can feel strangely longer than the whole course. I can walk the track, study every fence, check my stirrups and have a…
The fall happened at a water jump during an eventing competition, and it changed the way I thought about confidence. Archie and I had schooled through water…