Congratulations to Bonnie and Frankie

Bonnie and San Francisco II have WON their FIRST British Eventing event in the novice section at Broadway, Worcestershire this bank holiday weekend

Leading after the dressage, Bonnie and Frankie looked in great shape, suffering a fence down and some time penalties in the show jumping, Bonnie picked up the pace in the cross country to have quick round and become the second quickest of the day.

A big congratulations to Bonnie, we are pleased that your training is leading to such great success.

April - Competition Update

After competing at Weston Park Horse Trials, myself and Frankie were placed sixth in the novice out of 43 starters with a double clear. We had a fantastic day.

April - Frankie gets excited about jumping

During the last month I have made really good use of my training bursary with show jumping lessons, which is making me feel much more confident as this is an area that I want to improve on.

I had my second lesson with Mandy Kent on 11th March and it was just as enjoyable as the first. Again we started with grid work and moved on to short courses. In the grid we had three bounces in a row followed by three strides into a parallel; I’d only ever jumped one bounce on its own before with Frankie, but he was completely unfazed by having three and hopped through it like a professional.

In this lesson we worked on trying to keep a better rhythm on the approach to the fences. Sometimes, Frankie gets very excited about jumping and can get a bit too keen and quick, then I have a tendency to lean forward and shorten my reins, which in turn makes him shorten his canter and than I fire him into the fences. Mandy helped me to maintain a bigger, more fluent canter and allow him more time to jump his fences. She also got me to use my body to slow him down by sitting up much taller, instead of using my reins. I was also told to use much more outside leg to prevent him from drifting out as I turn into the fences.

This lesson was followed with another training session with Mandy Kent on 31st March which I shared with Sylvain Austry and Griselda Handy on their advanced and intermediate event horses. All the horses were very bright and fit so Mandy decided to challenge them with some big fences and tricky turns. We started with bounces again and than moved on to jumping some big fences in a course. Although Frankie was very excitable, Mandy said he looked really classy. She just wants me to get more control around the corners and sit on my bum more after the fences. She also said that he looks like he’s in need of a run.

Florence also had a lesson with Mandy; she was a little star and so brave. The advice with her was not to ride her too much like a baby because she isn‘t a typical spooky young horse. Instead of waiting for the fence to get to me, Mandy said I should ride her more forwards into the fence.

During the last month I’ve been to several competitions with both horses. Florence has been to dressage at Kings Equestrian and was first and seventh, combined training at Allens Hill where she was third and jumped her first show jumping class for Shropshire South Riding Club at Tack Farm where we were fifth as a team and sixth individually out of 44 - I was over the moon. Frankie has been to affiliated dressage at Kings and Allens Hill, having two firsts, a second and a fifth, he also did his first event of the season at Stafford and was fifth with a double clear.

I’m really enjoying all the training and it’s nice that people ask me why I’m wearing the Look4horses logo, I always explain about the training bursary and what Look4horses is. We even had a story in the Shropshire Star about the help I’m receiving. I’m now looking forward to Frankie’s next event.

Photo courtesy Bill Parrott.

March - My first lesson - jumping

After three years of owning Frankie, on 10th February I finally got my first jumping lesson on him. This was with Mandy Kent. I must admit I was quite nervous about it because I wasn’t sure how Frankie was going to behave because he’d never had group lessons and had only jumped once since October. I was very pleasantly surprised that he was actually very well behaved and chilled about the situation, despite it starting to snow quite heavily at one point.

First off we did a little bit of grid work and then moved on to short courses of five or six fences before finishing with a course of about eight fences. The main thing Mandy said to me was to lengthen my stirrups a hole, which surprised me because other people in the past have said I ride too long. Mandy said by putting my stirrups down it would make me ride deeper in the saddle (I do have a tendency to ride with my bum out of the saddle, especially when he gets strong), which in turn made me wrap my legs around him more and by doing this I was not having to rely on my rein so much to steady him up. After this the canter started to become much more fluent and consistent, which allowed us to ride deeper into the fence. This meant that I wasn’t making up so much distance in my doubles and we were getting a much more relaxed and comfortable jump.

I am really looking forward to my next jumping lesson now.

February - A perfect month for exercising race horses in the snow

Well, January was a particularly tricky month for everybody with all the snow. Frankie only started work on the 4th January, the poor boy spent the first two weeks working in six inches of snow, luckily he’s very sure footed and we didn’t have any problems.

I work at Henry Daly’s where we exercise the race horses up the grass gallops every day. We even exercised them through the snow, as I had been doing at home with Frankie. Between the people that work at Daly’s we had a fair group of fallers during the snow, unfortunately I did add to the list.

Since the snow has cleared I have managed to crack on with his road work and little bits of schooling and jumping, he seems pleased to be back in work and we are looking forward to his first jumping lesson with Mandy Kent.

I’ve owned Frankie for three years now and have never had a jumping lesson on him, so I am very excited as it is the show jumping that seems to let us down the most at events. Before I bought Frankie he had show jumped up to Newcomers but had become very stale and wasn’t enjoying jumping, which is why I thought it would be good to try dressage as this is something new to him; he took to dressage straight away once he’d learnt to go on the bit and not rear and have tantrums. He now has about 80 British Dressage points and 9 British Eventing points. Last year I did Hartpury CCI* with him and he loved every minute, especially the cross country.

My plans for him this year are to do more BE Novice events and I would love to have a go at another CCI* and who knows by the end of the season he may be ready for an Intermediate.

Now that I have become a Look4Horses Star Rider, I am really hoping that I can improve on my show jumping in particular, this is because I tend to get a little nervous before I show jump and with Frankie not being a great fan of it anyway, we don’t really help each other.

Our dressage is always quite a strong phase for us, this is because we are both chilled about it and tend to enjoy it, so I think we create a nice relaxed picture, but now I think it’s time I asked a little more of him, so that our tests look more expressive. This is where I need help with my dressage, I find it too easy to sit there and look pretty rather than taking the risk of pushing for more and getting it wrong and learning from it.

Since I’ve owned Frankie I’ve actually only had a total of four lessons, all on the flat. This is because money has always been tight and it’s always been a choice of either having a lesson or going competing and because I’m very competitive I’ve always opted for a competition; naughty I’m sure but there’s nothing nicer than coming home with a rosette or two. This is why I’m so grateful to Look4Horses, because now I can have lessons, improve and not miss out on competing.

One other thing I’ve been having a go at this month is, co-driving in a Darrien rally car round The K&R Mitsubishi Stages Rally with Neil Weaver, down in Somerset. I’ve never done it before but thoroughly enjoyed it and was extremely excited to be 1st in class and 6th overall of 70 cars and be best 2 wheel drive car. Maybe if I play my cards right I’ll get another go one day.

Well next time I speak to you I hope to have a couple of lessons under my belt and can share my experiences with you.