The two photos are from the Young Event Horse Finals at Wit’s End. He really likes the whole galloping part. We have two new sponsors for Solo’s blog, The Healing Tree and Leather Therapy.  Leather Therapy, Healing Tree and Equissentials are all partners in the Equine Quality Alliance. Selena and Solo and the rest of the Hawkridge […]

Solo has been on holiday since Wit’s End.  We hacked him for a couple of days of the first week, then eased it off to every other day and finally, when Selena set off for training camp for Fairhill, Solo was officially on holiday.  He had a lovely time.  He is fat and a little […]

Solo set off for Wit’s End last Monday. His traveling companion, Colombo, had a training session on Tuesday morning, so Solo went up a day early. The Canadian Y.E.H. finals were on the Wednesday. On Tuesday Solo was ridden around and jumped all sorts of little things at Peter Gray’s barn, where he was stabled.  Solo was […]

Solo seems to be settling down. He is still a real handful to ride and his latest ‘thing’ is spooking. He has always had it in him to be spooky, both in hand and under saddle.  The aggravating thing is that if someone walks up behind him and tells him to walk on, he will […]

As threatened, we took our boy to a dressage show and he was his usual stubborn, opinionated self.  However…he improved from one test to the other and he won a 7th place ribbon in his second test. That was on the Sunday.  On the Tuesday he left for Richland Park in Michigan where he was […]

Solo has been a busy boy.  He went to a ‘Radical Jumper’ show at Erinmoor Farm.  This is a fun series of shows offering a mix of cross country and show jumps with an optimum time.  He did lovely clear rounds but not close to the optimum time. At the moment, the important thing is […]

The day after I wrote the last entry I fell off Solo.   It is actually the first time that anyone has fallen off him and I think he was a bit shocked (so was I).   I had him out in the grand prix field which is nice soft grass, and he had been […]

Recently Solo has been so good it’s been boring. He has been getting better and better at going sideways and as a result, he is more through in his back and all his work seems easier for him. However…. Yesterday I thought he felt a bit sticky, not as free forward moving a I have […]

We are still having problems with Solo’s ability to show free forward movement in a 20 x 40 arena.  It feels like riding an elephant in a bathtub.  I don’t remember 20 x 40 being that small…..ever! He is not good at raising and moving his back in the corners so that he can shorten […]

Solo is jumping like a superstar. He just loves it. We don’t jump him much, probably once a week. It’s really not something he needs to school.  He is also doing well on the flat but still has problems fitting into a 20 x 40 ring.  Give him a big space and he is ‘to […]