We have had a few quiet weeks at home after our first event of the season at Tweseldown at the beginning of March.

We have been training incerdibly hard on the flat with Mary Coleman. I have had some lessons with her on both horses recently and they are both going fantastically....she even said we may even make a dressage horse out of roxie yet! Milli is schooling well too but has now learnt to buck, and she does rather big bucks too!! Mary had said not to tell of off too much as she has such a huge canter and the bucks may be because she is getting cross with herself as she doesn't know what to do with her legs! Bles her!

After our three fences down in the showjumping at Tweseldown I have been doing lots of grid work with Roxie. I keep watching the video back to see if I go forward too early or if the stride isn't quite right, but I am pleased to say my riding was good so she's just got to learn to pick her feet up in time! If any of you reading this know of any excercises to help make our horses more carefull, please share and comment at the bottome!! :)

This week, in preparation for Goring Heath, I have had another lesson with Mary on Roxie and she worked fantastically! Fingers crossed she goes as well at the event! I have showjumped Roxie again tonight, doing more grid work exercises and she jumped superbly, so it seems to have worked :)

Next Blog will have a full report on how it all goes at Goring Heath and more......

So, until next time,
X

Keep Calm & Canter On

Well after not having much to Blog about recently, things are about to change as the 2012 Event Season has officially started for Sarah Gadd Eventing!!!

My alarm went off at 5am, Friday 9th March and I jumped out of bed with excitement....we were off to Tweseldown for our first event :) I got the yard done and everything loaded (although I was convinced I would have forgotten something!) and off we went. It was our first outing in the Trailer which was one of my purchases after selling Sabrina as I have already got a 4x4 so, why not?!? I was interested to see if Roxie was going to travel any better as she didn't like it in our lorry as it is slightly narrower than some others.

On arrival I took Roxie for a walk around and then set off to walk my XC course. It looked a decent course to start the season off with. There were plently of questions asked throughout the course and the ground was good with the odd deep patch on some take offs but thankfully the fence judges were armed with rakes to sort out the ground in between horses.
I then went a looked at the show jumping which again was well built but nothing too scary, and all the distances looked like they were riding well.
 

I went and got Roxie ready for the Dressage and started warming her up. She was rather excited to start with but after a canter about the warm-up she soon knuckled down and concentrated on what was being asked of her. In the arena she remained calm throughout the test and didn't jog in her free walk which can  sometimes be her downfall. She did some good medium trot and canter steps too and scored 38.0. I was pleased with the test and with more work on getting her working through her back more whilst remaining calm and collected hopefully this mark will improve.
 

With a quick change of tack we went to warm-up for the show jumping. She had started to realise that we were eventing now as she could see others out on the
XC course. She was jumping well so, in we went. She jumped a very good round and I actually rode her the whole way round which is something we have been working on such a lot since my accident. Unfortunately we did have 3 down, but when looking at the video it was more her just being slightly excited to be out on the grass again and not picking her feet up in time! With more work on her way of jumping as opposed to my position this should soon be sorted.
 

Putting our show jumping faults behind us and remembering it is our first event of the season and we have gone straight in at Novice level we changed tack and set off for the XC. Excitement got the better of her in the warm up and she was squeaking and putting in lots of little bucks! We set off and she flew around at a great speed! We did pick up 20 penalties though at 9b which was the second part of a double of angled skinnies. This was more rider error really, I'm going
to be honest, I didn't really set her up in time for 9a and just let her run on a bit too fast into it so couldn't make the dog-leg turn to 9b! I was furiors with myself and as I circled back

round I could hear Marietta's (Fox-Pitt) voice in my head saying where was your outside rein and leg?!! After this I just let her go on at her own speed and she jumped the rest of the course without any hesitation. Because of our circles at fence 9 we did pick up 11.6 time faults but when looking back at the results I think that was quite quick as only one person made it inside the time in my arena, and as William Fox-Pitt said "I  think the course must have been wheeled with one or two short cuts!"
 

Saturday was relatively quiet day at home, I worked Milli and did some teaching whilst Roxie spent the day out in the field, enjoying the sunshine.
 

On Sunday (the 11th) I was taking Milli back to Limes Farm, this time to do some Dressage. It was going to be her first EVER time in an arena so my main aims were to stay in the arena and maintain a consistant rhythm! Milli, once again showed us what a cracking little horse she is and finished on 58.8% in 3rd place out of 13 other competitors!! We were all chuffed that's for sure. Lets just all keep our fingers crossed that she continues to improve ready for the young horse classes, which start in June :)
 

Once I got back from Limes Farm I took Roxie out for a quiet hack, which she found incredibly exciting so she is definately pleased to be ack eventing that's for sure.....in fact so am I :)

As the eventing season has started, everything has really stepped up a gear now so there will be more regular Blogs after competitions, events and training sessions, so please keep checking out my website for the very latest news and results.

Until next time,

Keep Calm & Canter On
~X~

Well, what a busy few weeks we've had recently...we've been out to various training sessions and competitions and I'm very pleased the feedback is all very positive!!

At the end of February I took Milli (Diamond Mill) to an unaffiliated SJ show at LFEC. She jumped a lovely double clear in the 85cm to come 4th....she was only 8 second behind the leader and we didn't do any turns!! She's obviously got quite a ground covering stride. As she jumped so beautifully in the 85cm I decided she didn't need to jump another class, after all she is only 4 years old!

On saturday (3rd March) I was off to Littleton Manor to do some XC Schooling. I was teaching a lesson there which I did from on board Milli. Everybody rode incredibly well and we had a great day, well once the weather had brightened up anyway! Milli was incredibly brave and popping over what ever we put in front of her, including ditches, skinnies and steps up and down!

Then it was Roxie's turn, and she was incredibly pleased to be out jumping the solid fences that's for sure! I was joining in on a XC Clinic with International Event Rider Gemma Tattersall. It's amazing how making tiny little change really helps. Although roxie was rather excited, she soon knuckled down and really listened to what I was asking of her. We finished off over some of the Intermediate fences. Gemma kept commenting on how much scope Roxie has got....it's just getting her to use it that can sometimes be the problem! Gemma agreed with me that after a few Novice runs and a CIC* that she will be ready to move up to Intermediate level.

Please check out and subscribe to my YouTube channel for all the latest videos, including those from Littleton Manor @ http://www.youtube.com/user/SarahGaddEventing.

Pictures now uploaded into the Training Galleries for Roxie and Milli as well as those I was teaching in Other.

We have our first event this week at Tweseldown Horse Trials on Firday so keep your eyes peeled for updates on how everything goes, fingers crossed it will be a good start to the season :)

So, Until next time,

Sarah
X