Posts

A new competition venue can turn Archie into a completely different horse. At home, he may walk past the arena gate, ignore a flapping tarp and settle into…

There are moments in eventing that split your timeline into before and after. The sound of a leather girth tearing as I launched over a wide oxer at the Sydney…

I have ridden past the same crooked feeling in my body for years. My right shoulder creeps forward on every left circle, and my left seat bone feels glued to…

A long journey to a competition can look deceptively simple on paper. Load Archie, drive to the venue, settle him into his stable, unpack the gear and start…

Archie has been with me through four seasons of eventing, from entry-level training at home to the 2-star at Boneo Park last spring, and the one habit that has…

For most of last season I had a problem I did not want to talk about. My spurs would slowly work their way down my boot during the warm-up, and by the time I…

The exercise looked simple enough on paper. My coach planted her stopwatch on the railing, told me to come out of the saddle, and said she would not call time…

The first time I saw a coffin combination drawn on a course map, my stomach did a small flip. A good friend had circled it in red pen and written "trust your…

A show schedule rarely behaves as neatly as the timetable suggests. At a horse trial, Archie might be listed for dressage at 8:12 am, show jumping after lunch,…

For a long time, I thought a balanced seat was the answer to almost every problem on horseback. It helped me sit quietly in dressage, keep my weight centred…