Today started off with a trip to Canadian team coach Clayton Fredricks’ farm for a show jumping lesson on Woody. He was a very good boy and we did the biggest bounce I’ve ever done, I think. It was actually two bounces made of three verticals getting progressively taller. I swear the last one was […]

The tornado watch in Ocala fizzled out into a Wind Advisory. Unfortunately the weather was bad enough to cancel the Florida Horse Park’s schooling day, which was a disappointment. Kelly Damp arrived to ride her Zephyr and Thunder had a last schooling jump before his owner arrives tomorrow. Everyone schooled at home except Benny. Somebody […]

One of my most dreaded tasks at the start of the year is making sure Leslie, my, and every horse in the barn’s memberships, registrations and passports are up to snuff. Due to the cultural diversity of my little family you can imagine how ridiculously complicated this is. Canada, America and Great Britain, FEI, National […]

Today was pretty quiet both sides of the border. The ponies in Ocala did trot sets, which means they work in pairs. Anne Marie and Selena will ride one horse and lead either one or two more and go out and do ‘trot sets.’ Trot sets are an absolute necessity if the horses are going […]

One of the things I see often – even with professional riders – is that the rider is not sitting straight on the horse (especially obvious when you see the rider from behind!). You will find good examples of this in almost any equestrian publication. Do you often have to step into one stirrup while […]

Rummy didn’t do it today, but one day he DID walk over the log on top of the ‘hump’ on his way home from a hack. All by himself! He is terribly calm under saddle and brave without getting silly. He has responded quickly to being asked to ‘stay with the group,’ and it is […]

The other day we happened upon one of the big eventing websites that had posted Leslie’s gold medal round from Athens as a feature on their daily news as a build up for this year’s games in Rio. I always find it thrilling to watch Leslie, or Stan’s, epic save at the boat houses on […]

Well, as an American endurance chum put it, that was as useful as a bucket of warm spit. I don’t know a single sceptic who wouldn’t have been ecstatic to be proved wrong about the efficacy of the “strong new measures” put in place on February 13th for the remainder of the UAE winter season. […]

It’s been awhile since I blogged, but I can’t believe how much we have done in that time! Time has this way of going a bit funny in Florida and I am never sure what day it is and whether time is going super fast or super slow. I still haven’t gotten over Woody winning […]

After yesterday’s excitements, today seemed a bit of a let down. We were practicing cross country indoors here in Canada. We were working on pace into a skinny, a spread and a double bounce. It’s difficult to get enough cross country practice, and in the winter it’s close to impossible. However, we are able to […]