Well, i suppose im lucky to writting this blog post today!

Yesterday i was booked to school one of my clients lovely horses, an ex racer who lacks balance and is not easy to keep settled, no problem yo may think, well considering that since it is rather a long time since my last ride, about 8 weeks!, im perhaps not as fit in the riding department and i could be!

The session was booked for 10am, however, as we had had temperatures of over 30 degrees the previous day, i decided i would move the session forward to 9am when it should be cooler.

This proved to be a bad move! I duly schooled the horse, who went so well, and after he produced his best work yet, i stopped and spoke with his owner, then suddenly felt really dizzy, so i dismounted and promptly collapsed!

 

It turned out i had overheated and had the onset of heat exhaustion! So, i returned to the owners mothers house and rested in the shade with copious amounts of cold drink and hosed myself down to try and reduce my core temperature, this took a couple of hours!

 

So, i guess i'm lucky, but it could have been much worse, i had no warning signs, felt absolutely fantastic while riding, then it hit me!

 

Please don't let this happen to  you, when the weather is warm, please ensure you have plenty of fluids and don't ride on your own, or tell someone where you are or when you should be back, if i'd been on my own, i dread to think what could have happened.

 

Stay safe and cool!!!

We had a super day at Dene Farm on the 27th March. The weather was very good, rather warm but not too hot.

 

Another small group to teach, however very well matched horses and riders.

 

This was the first Showjump crosscountry training held at dene farm, and it was fabulous. The owner, Nigel, had very kindly given us his showjumps and different fillers to use, and use them we did!

 

As showjump crosscountry is basically cross country over showjumps, we did all our training over the showjumps, working on the techniques you would use on the XC course, but the aim was to produce the horses pace to be able to balance the horse according to the type of showjump presented to you, so for example an upright needs the horse to be steady and balanced with the horse sitting on his hocks as opposed to a spread which can be jumped out of the horses pace he is at.

 

So after an hour spent learning different techniques, we put to use these new skills and went out on the cross country course, and well, the results shouted out the difference! The horses had no stops, run outs, hick ups anywhere on course, in fact, they were fantastic. The riders learnt about how their position was influencing, or hindering, the horses way of going and again, this was so evident on the drop fences, water jumps and the different terrain we were experiencing.

 

It was a super day and i hope to do another one very soon.

 

Well done to all who attended, you were great.