Despite the poor weather, training continued, although jumping was replaced with long walks in the snow. I have now tried various methods to keep snow from balling in the hooves, good old vaseline still won, but plasticine also worked well, but was rather expensive!
I have put a stop to the snow now though, I bought some snow rim pads for the hooves and had a set installed in the front of my second horse, Peer's, shoes. I was keen to test them out, but all snow is now off, clearly worth buying them for that!
So January started with BE Jump Training 100 at Hartpury, our drawn time was quite late at 5pm, so was under lights in the indoor school. We were warmed up by Nick Guanlett, which was pure bliss for me! Not only did you get instruction, but you also got someone putting up the jumps and the warm up jumps to yourself. As a regular lone showjumper, it was lovely to have someone on the ground for a change! The tips were pretty good too! The actual jumping went very well in the first round, but we were running out of puff in the second, although I was definitely more tired than the horse! I was gob smacked to be placed 2nd and we have now qualified for the BE Jump Training Final.
The second big thing in January was an Andy Austin Masterclass for 'HORSE' Magazine. Paladin and I were selected for the masterclass, which was a lesson whilst they take lots of photos. I got a huge amount out of the lesson and it highlighted what a difference a pure discipline trainer can make. I have been putting all that I learnt into practise - and have been learning to hit the 'sweet spot' on big oxers, as we did have a problem with taking off too far away.
Paladin and I will be featured in a 5 page spread in the March issue of HORSE, lets just hope the pictures aren't too cringe worthy!!
