Posts

Rain on competition morning changes the packing routine before I have even loaded Archie. A damp saddle is more than an inconvenience: moisture can mark…

A cross-country round can leave a horse looking far more battered than he really is. Archie may come back with mud across his chest, grass stains on his knees…

Cross-country is the phase of eventing where a neat dressage test and a careful show-jumping round have to become one forward, committed effort. The fences may…

The first time I led Archie to a water complex at a training day, he stopped at the edge and lowered his head. The water was shallow, but the drop was enough…

People often ask me what I do when my girth slips during a dressage test. With Archie, I do not pretend nothing happened or push through simply because I have…

I had entered Archie for a one-day event at an outdoor pony club outside Ballarat, Victoria, with a cross-country course that rose towards its final fence. The…

Braiding can look like the quickest part of groom presentation, yet for Archie it once turned a calm horse into a shifting, head-swinging handful of mane. A…

Choosing a bit for a competition horse is rarely about finding one magical piece of equipment and using it everywhere. Archie feels different depending on the…

The morning Archie and I rode at a dressage competition near Melbourne, the forecast looked manageable: a cool breeze, scattered cloud and no rain. By the time…

There's a particular flavour of chaos you only find at Australian eventing competitions during spring — horses jog-lopping past each other in a packed warm-up…