A new addition to Jo Barry's string of horses and snow puts pay to riding!

5 inches of snow has put pay to any riding over the last 5 days. The horses are quite happy though with the impromptu break and enjoying the chance to go in the field and play in the snow! So far so good though and only one shoe has been lost during their frolics.

It has been another busy month, the website has brought in a couple of new full liveries. I am really pleased with the response that it has generated and next year looks to be starting off well.
The Scottish area of British Dressage held an Awards Dinner and Ceilidh at the end of November. It was a really fun night and Freddie was awarded a trophy for being the highest placed Scottish horse at the National Championships.

Freddie and I headed down to Cheshire for two days training with Stephen Clarke at the beginning of December. Stephen worked on getting Freddie to sit and take more weight on his hindlegs and start to develop the head and neck carriage required for a Grand Prix horse. I find the balance between Carl and Stephen's training very good, they concentrate on different aspects of his way of going from which I can reach a balance between the two to find optimum power, submission and expression that suits Freddie and I.

Rafa has had a confidence building month being a guinea pig on two courses. The first was a BD Trainee Judges course taken by Andrew Gardiner and the second was a SEA/SportScotland Level 3 Coaches Course. He was especially good at the coaches course. He had to work for a long time the first day and I thought he would come out the next day saying he did not want to play..if anything he was more game and worked very well! Usually I come home feeling frustrated thinking 'Oh Rafa!!!' and it was lovely to come home and tell everyone how great he had been!

The BIG news is I have a BIG new horse..huge Hugo arrived last week!! He is a lovely elegant looking horse but is only 3 years old (rising 4) and 17hh already. He was bred in Germany and is a hanoverian by Royal Blend (Rotspon), he also had Lauries Crusador and Akzent II in his breeding. He had been broken for just over a month but due to the snow I haven't been able to start work with him yet.

Hoping for a quiet Christmas and looking forward to an exciting 2010!

Vicky Smith's latest blog: A successful December!

Well so much for December being a quiet month! I seem to have been at shows every weekend. I took Guinness (Millhollow King of Kings) out to do some winter showjumping where he jumped 4 clear rounds and won a british novice class.

I then took my new coloured horse Indian King to his first show. The CHAPS Christmas show at South View. He came third and behaved extremely well and was very grown up. My mum was horrified when I bought a coloured horse but luckily the Deep clean shampoo and Arctic white liquid chalk worked a treat. Poor Bugsy had a bath and was then painted white! Im looking forward to getting him out again in the new year.

On Saturday the 13th December I took my old horse Misty to the final of the Oliver Townend Eventers challenge at Aintree. We had a great night with Misty finishing 4th. He behaved like an old pro as he hasn’t been to a show since he qualified in October!

On the Sunday I had a practice on Sunday at Badgeworth Arena in Somerset as I am riding the Connemara Johns Cuckoo at Olympia on Monday in the Baileys horse feeds mountain and moorland championship for my good friend Mathew Lawrence who produces him. I have only sat on Johnny twice so was delighted to win- fingers crossed for the final

All the horses are having a couple of weeks off now except Guiness who will have a days hunting on boxing day. I will post a full Olympia report in my next blog so best Christmas wishes to you all!

Katherine Begley's latest blog and some video footage to watch!

Since Belvedere has been back in work after his post event season holiday we have been concentrating on our show jumping. This is our weakest phase and is very hit and miss and so, as I am looking to go Intermediate next year, we felt it really needed some serious improvement.

We have been having regular lessons with Brian Smith, and he has revolutionised our canter and the way I ride, thus improving our show jumping beyond belief. When I first started having lessons with Brian, we kept it small and simple. Just concentrating on improving the canter and helping me to get Belvedere to the right take off point every time. Once we had begun to establish these basics we moved onto some special grid work, designed to make Belvedere become more elevated in his canter strides and not change his rhythm as he got close to the fence. In order to do this, we used two raised canter poles a stride apart, and then had an upright/spread at a one stride distance. Whilst doing this my confidence grew and my ability to get Belvedere to the right take off point time after time improved dramatically, therefore we have begun to train over bigger fences. I am currently regularly jumping 1m20 in my sessions with Brian, and have even tackled some short courses at 1m25-1m30. So far the training has been very encouraging, and I hope to compete is some BSJA Foxhunters/1m20’s soon, in order to prepare for the coming event season.

Here are some videos of recent training sessions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4vYsAUEUD0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXVjk2sy4kI

In between our show jumping I have enjoyed hunting Belvedere. He loves his hunting and if ever his career in Eventing doesn’t work out, our field master has bagsied him as her hunt horse. A few weeks ago the Horse and Hound came out with us and their report has just been published in this week’s Horse and Hound. On page 28 there is a lovely photograph of Dawn (the field master), myself and Kevin (Dawn’s husband) trotting along. I also received two small mentions in the report which was nice, one of these was as a ‘’young thrusters’’ for the NHH!!

Finally, just to add that my Weston Park JRN CCIJ* Championships Cross Country DVD arrived a few weeks ago, and it can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKv1bNY77bI

Furthermore, if you would like to follow my progress and keep up to date with what is happening, then please follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/KBEventing and visit my website www.katherinebegley.com

Oli Lawrence's latest blog: A driving lesson to forget!

So hopefully you’ve read my introduction and know who I am. I’ve been writing blogs on my website for a while now so you can read the whole history there. But, here’s the present – the latest blog...

"So this is Christmas and what have you done”.... Merry Christmas! For a change I thought I’d start with something a little bit non horse related – driving/learning! Well, my brother Ben was either brave or foolish in the extreme when he offered to come with me in the car when I ‘had a little play’.... Everything was going so well, I could break (and send both of us through the windscreen), accelerate and steer around the dog who seemed intent on telling the world to be afraid.... Then we (oh yes, the royal ‘we’!) decided to do some fancy reversing which was fine until I got near the hedge so, very calmly and cooly applied the break, then shot straight into the hedge.... there was one of those pauses, the silences that last for eternity with just the startled sheep running around. It couldn’t last as Ben burst out laughing and just wouldn’t stop... It ended up to be all fine, all that happened was a bit of dirt got violently scrubbed off the back of the car and I learnt not to have small excitable distractions named Ben sitting next to you..... of course we didn’t mention the car shaped hole in the hedge.

On the horse front it’s all go. Dell’s now in livery to give us access to a huge indoor school and he's getting the hang of what all weather gallops are for – fun, fun, fun... Plus, there’s some exciting developments going on with some new rides coming up – I’ll keep you posted. Last weekend we were off Christmas showjumping and Dell jumped a double clear in the Newcomers.

Dell’s also learning rather quickly that just because something looks a tad strange it doesn’t mean it will eat him. He’s recently been convinced that running water’s full of demons so reckons if he gives it at least 6 feet of air he’ll be safe – poor Dell, once he got used to streams we went and found a river... job done!

Don’t forget to check out the website for the latest blogs or just keep an eye on this page to follow the trials, challenges, success and just ‘some of those moments’ straight from the jockeys mouth!

Josh Thompson's first blog

Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Josh Thompson, and I am in my final year at Sedbergh School. I’m based in Cumbria, where I have two horses to event. Horses have always been my passion, and at the moment I plan to combine eventing with my studies, but ideally I would love to do horses full time.

After three disrupted seasons, due to cancellations and horse injuries I am now finally where I want to be with my riding. I finished 2009 with a completion at Weston Park 1*, I had been aiming to do a CCI for the past year, so it was great to finally do it. That was with the great little Shannagarry, who saved the season for me. He is on lease until the end of next year and I hope to be competitive at Intermediate with him in 2010.

My other horse is the quirky but talented Viander. We bought 'Duncan' in March, but he sadly threw a splint just days before his first event in April, and did not compete until August. We spent the few events we did getting to know each other, he is a clever horse, and he knows that BE100 is too small for him, hence his laziness, however once the jumps go up he gives them miles! His dressage has been very difficult this year, he has beautiful paces but an attitude to match, with has resulted in some horrendous scores! However, after a short beak at the end of the season he has come back better than ever and I really cannot wait until next year!

November has been a quiet month, as I have been concentrating on school work. Duncan has improved masses in his flatwok, and his lateral work has come on no end. I am now home for Christmas, and have spent the last few days clipping and generally sorting the yard out. 'Shannah' is now walking out daily, buliding up his fitness over the next few weeks after his post-season holiday. Duncan is hopefully starting to jump again this week, which I am really looking forward to. I need to get registered fir BSJA, BE and BD and get competing in preparation for next seasons eventing!

Until the next time all that is left to say is Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Craig Barr's blog: From Thailand back to reality!

Hello and welcome to my first blog. My name is Craig Barr, I am a 22 year old event rider from Cheshire. I am based on Somerford Park with Andrew Heffernan, I have been working for Andy for over five years now as his head groom and one of his second riders. I have been Eventing for many years now but have never made it past Novice level due to horses going lame at the wrong time but I hope to correct that with my new ride for 2010, the 9yo Kilkee who I hope to been doing well with round intermediates and 2 stars at before the end of the season.

So December has started and I have just started back on the yard after an amazing month travelling around Thailand with my girl friend and fellow event rider Sarah Stretton and fellow eventers and good friends Ben Hobday, James Sommerville, Max Gordon, Georgie Spence, Rose Bridgwood, Faith Cook and show jumper Tom Davison. Possibly one of the best times of my life.

But for the last week it’s been back to the British winter and reality. The yard is busier than ever this year, we have sixteen horses in at the moment and just to keep me going when ever I go down to see Sarah on my day off she drags me to her yard to ride her horses, so its all go at the moment. Kilkee is back on the yard after been kept in light work while I was away by one of the girls I work with. He has been going well and will be heading out for his first pre-season show jumping show next week. I will be hoping to get out to a lot of winter dressage and show jumping so me an Kilkee can come out fit and flying next season.

So until next time I wish u all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy (and hopefully not too blurry) New Year!

Kelly Dickson's blog: Water Trays are not our friends!

It was quite a mixed month. Having qualified for the Amateur and Blue Chip Championships early on, my plans went out of the window. So I spent the best part of October working extra hours including weekend night shifts, which isn't the best thing that can happen if your trying to keep a horse fit. We are still looking around trying to relocate as my partner's work commitments means we have to move, but at least we will stay put until after Christmas. So a busy time outside of competing.

I took Charlie off to Addington on the 7th November. Not our best day. He was rather lively and fresh as he didn't go anywhere for a few weeks, he decided he knew better and while showing off, missed the fact that there were fences. So had a few stops in the Discovery and 1.10m Open.

As we were booked in to go to the Amateur Championships on the 26th November, I thought I'd better take him jumping again after the awful day at Addington. I took the 18th off work and went down to the Hand. A much better day resulting in an 8th place in the Discovery and our 3rd double clear and another double clear in the 1.05m Open.

Next stop the Amateurs. Set off the day before the show and got to Aintree in quite good time taking me about 4 1/2 hours. The first day went quite well with a clear in the warm up class, and a stop at the water tray in the 1m qualifier after a bit of a pile up in the practice ring. Day 2 wasn't our day. I think the pile up on the first day had shaken Charlie up a bit and again we had a disagreement at the water tray. So we came home a day early not having made it to the final, but it was a great experience and as he doesn't stay over at shows very often, it did Charlie good to get used to the atmosphere. Before we left we had a great time using the gallops next to the race course.

So getting all the thermals out now ready for the frosts and trying to fit in Christmas shopping. Oh and I need to find time to make and practice over a water tray. Merry Christmas to you all and a Happy New Year.