For those of you that do not know, the eventing community lost one of our own on the weekend. Ms. Philippa Humphreys. She was riding in the Jersey Fresh CCI ***, a great rider on a great horse. Leslie and I watched her through a few jumps and can only say that she and the […]

After having discussed the points on this topic made by Barbara Ann King in the last blog, I now take my prerogative as author of this blog to elaborate on the concept of treed saddles and what are essentially ‘bareback pads’ – the appellation of ‘treeless saddle’ is somewhat of a misnomer. Particularly of interest […]

I just realized that although the whole topic of treeless saddles vs. treed saddles is a pretty controversial one, I have not until now shared my personal thoughts with you on them in this blog space. Please do understand, however, that my thoughts are based on scientific facts and truths – regardless what the manufacturers […]

About two weeks ago in England, a prestigious writing award for young people announced their winners and published the articles they had written. Last week, the Belgian Appeal court upheld their decision that the FEI could not penalise top athletes for competing in an unsanctioned competition (the Global Champions League) and then this week, the […]

Last year I had quite a few conversations with the sports desk of a national newspaper which went something like this: “Hello, can I interest you in a piece about Scott Brash winning his fourth consecutive Grand Prix?” “We’re a bit short of space today because of the soccer/cricket/rugby. Remind me who he is?” “He’s […]

It is almost May and what that means for us southern equine professionals is that we can just about take a sigh of relief with the crazy winter season coming to an end. We have pretty much been at events every single weekend for the last month and have been going balls to the wall […]

Okay, so you all know that I live and work with horses everyday. While I don’t have any children of my own, I played a big role in raising my nephew, Liam. I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between my horses and Liam when he was a toddler. I’ve come to the conclusion, there […]

Saddle fitting Hell. I have seen this term used many times in various chat forums to indicate general unhappiness with the whole procedure of having to buy a(nother) new saddle because the old one no longer fits or works. Even though over the years saddle sales and fitting procedures have changed drastically (and I like […]

I remember a couple of years ago when David Letterman was still on TV and his ‘top ten’ lists were probably my favourite part of his show. So I thought it would be a fun idea to post some ‘top 10’ lists that I have compiled over the years; many thanks particularly to Cavallo magazine […]

So Selena and Tori left at seven am this morning. That will get them to the border for around 7.40 and through to the vet for 8am. It’s good to try and get to the vet early and not get stuck behind cattle trucks or more horses going through. It can be a very long […]