2012 wrap up

Well another year over and done with – unfortunately I didn’t get to finish my first 4star event the way I wanted, however that is horses! We believe that Murphy (Tempus Fugit) suffered a minor injury in the float on the long journey over, which became the reason for my retiring at jump 22 on course. He’s young enough to live to fight another day, and with a big year planned for 2013, I’m proud that he got as far as he did. However, we both had a ball, and came home with lots to work on! But what a great event Adelaide organisers put on – this was my first time seeing it run in front of the newly refurbished grandstand and I am very impressed. The Trade Village being right next to the stables was also deadly, as I think I spent way too much! We made it home safely, after a very long 3 days, and my horses are now all out in a big paddock together in a little herd, free to be horses. For me, I get a month that is mostly horse free, and plan on spending most of my time at the beach, fishing rod in hand!

Thanks to everyone who supported me to get to Adelaide, it means so much, I couldn’t have got there without your ongoing support. Especially a big thanks to Prydes for keeping my ponies fat and happy and full of energy, and to the Valley Equine Centre and Warwick Vale for putting up with me!

2013 brings many exciting things – my team will definitely be returning to Adelaide to again tackle the 4star class, and also hoping that I can bring at least one, if not two, youngsters along to experience the atmosphere in the 2star class.

Week to go!

Well this time next week I will be sitting at Fraser Range, enjoying the sunset after a long day driving! Hard to believe it is only a week to go until we leave! Today, Murph and I had our last little cross country tune up, including doing some S bending lines, and he was super. Yesterday we went to Albany Ag show and jumped around the 1.35m with only one rail down, a Swedish oxer right by the grandstand. Tomorrow we head to Perth to see the wonderful Jon Pitts and then it is a few days at home before the big trek, with lots of packing to do! This week is all about building confidence and ‘enhancing’ (my new favourite word) what we’ve got rather than ‘fixing’ stuff (which is what summer if for!).
Then next Saturday we start the packing – when Antonia Hartley and Due Heed arrive, as our travel buddies for the journey. Until then…

Road to Adelaide

Well the countdown is on for Adelaide – with two weeks to go until we leave and make the treck across the Nullabor once again.

Murph has been going great guns – with quite a busy schedule on up until a few weeks ago. He has had some solid runs in local CNC and CIC*** classes, with the latest one being the Swan River Horse Trials CIC***, where we placed third. Since then we have been working on fitness and fine tuning, for both of us. This includes things like working on suppleness in his dressage work, and trying to transfer it through the test movements. The same goes with the jumping, and I have been working on lots of grids and exercises designed to enhance his jump, rather than practice courses.

As for my fitness, I have been busy riding lots of horses, as well as trying to fit in some off the horse fitness, in short bursts. I have also been doing a lot of work into my mental fitness, to test concentration endurance, and continue developing my control of mental awareness with my sports pysc.

Now it is onto one more showjumping day, and then some work with Jon Pitts, before the final countdown really begins!

Alcoa

Well after a weekend of beautiful weather I have survived the wonderful Fairbridge CNC event…just!!

We were lucky enough to have Wayne Roycroft attend the event and assist the elite riders. I found this especially good for my dressage warm up, helping me get more structure to my warm up as well as be more co-ordinated with timing. Unfortunately Murph did think the marquees around the main around were a tad too close for him to be able to concentrate fully, resulting in a less than desirable test.  The weather on Saturday was magnificent! Next up was Saturday Night Fever who was  attending his first event. After a slightly odd dressage test it was found that poor Trav had picked up a piece of glass in his foot, which had penetrated. That ruled him out for the weekend – luckily he is on the mend, on lots of antibiotics and on bed rest. This made me late for Felix’s test, but as always he was on good behaviour and did a nice test.

The cross country had lots of new jumps for all grades which was fantastic to see. The three star especially featured some great new jumps bulking up the majority of the course and providing lots of new challenges for us all. Even the prenovice course featured minature Burghley fences.

Jumping day featured highs and lows, with hard work paying off in many areas and still lots to work on in others. All the jumps in the Three Star rode fantastically and the weather put on a good show. Overall Murph finished 3rd in the 3 star. Felix finished 6th in the prenovice going double clear in the XC.

Home safe  - and an easy week coming up in the lead up to a local dressage weekend.

Wooroloo dressage day

Well with day one over and done there were some happy results and some not so happy results. I believe the best score of the day was Joy Grey in the Senior Intro on a 26 penalties!

As for me – Parkiarrup Puzzle went first out. He was a little flat and not quite himself, so the test reflected, scoring a 54 and finishing 10th. However, he is to be scratched from the rest of the competition as he is only young and doesn’t need to be pushed when not quite right.

Touchstone Felix went out next and was AMAZING! The best he has ever been, so supple and rideable – and even with a rider’s error of course, he scored a 41 to be in the lead! So proud of him.

Tempus Fugit was last out – after winning the warmup I was quite anxious to get into the arena and show them how good he was being – however I think nerves and excitement took over, with the canter work not being as soft as he can do. He scored a 54, to be in second place, behind Lindsay Honey and Bindaboo who is on 42.

Cross country today – the course looks amazing, some really tough questions out there, with lots of new jumps, it should make for an exciting day! Definitely not going to be a dressage competition!

Countdown to Wooroloo

Hi All,

The countdown to Wooroloo is on!! I have been very busy travelling all over WA in the lead up to this, recently returning from Margaret River only few days ago after having lessons at Yalambi Stud Farm.

Wooroloo this year means 3 horses, 5 saddles, 2 floats, 3 cars, 1 Winnebago, 5 bales of hay, 2 parents 1 boyfriend and a 3am start tomorrow! What an event it should be, I am so looking forward to this event, with the whole thing being relocated I think it should run amazingly.

Murph dressages on Friday at 2.50pm so you will have quite a wait for scores, but stay tuned tomorrow for updates on Felix’s first trot up and some insight into what the course looks like.

Wooroloo CIC/CNC

What a weekend!! We had sold our amazing Double D gooseneck only that week, so it meant we had to travel to the event in the trusty old Olympic double float, with swags in tow.
Puzzle was first up on saturday doing dressage in the ice and frost – but it didn’t faze the horse from Albany, and he put together a nice test…which at the end of the day saw him leading on 40.2! He showjumped well, his technique is getting better and better every day, but I am pretty sure he is ready for the jumps to be a bit bigger.  Once Puzz had finished dressage and showjumping I had to dressage Murph. Murph and I have been working hard with Judy Weber, dressage rider, judge and amazing coach. It meant that we had a lot of new ‘habits’ to form and to try and get rid of old habits.  So the test was good and bad, scoring 57.
XC day also meant that Puzz went first, and with Sonja still in town, pressure was on for Puzz to finish within time. He flew around the course without a hitch, and won a rug!! Murph then went XC and after being weirdly calm in the warmup we had a great run. I don’t wear a watch with Murph, and we had more new ‘habits’ to try and form which I think went really well its now just a case of trying to get them to cement in place. It ended with Murph coming home with a few times penalties. He showjumped really well, going clear.
Considering the bad start to the year, I was thrilled with this result – and everything is on track to keep pushing onward and upward.

Felix wins Murray ODE

With Murph out of work this year, it has given Felix the chance to shine. Felix is my young stockhorse x thoroughbred. He has taken over as my ‘squad’ replacement, going along to as many clinics as I can get him into, and learning a lot along the way.
He competed at Serpentine ODE earlier in the year, doing C grade (85cm). However, he recorded a minor hesitation at the water and came home with 20 penalties. From there, we worked with Sonja a lot XC training, and entered B grade (95cm) at Murray ODE.
It was a great weekend, he scored his PB in the dressage of 40.2 and taking the lead. The course was amazing, it was quite challenging, without ever asking too much. So it was nice to expose a young horse to different kinds of fences. He zoomed around the cross country without missing a beat to come in double clear and holding onto the lead. The showjumping also followed without missing a beat, however a tad slow, to incur one time penalty – finishing on 41.2 to win the class.  So he was very stoked to bring home his first blue ribbon.
Below are some photos of Felix at Murray, decked out in our new Prydes gear, whom we are very proud to be representing.

Murray XC

Clear SJ

2012 Murphy

Hi all

An update for 2012 – lots has been going on!
In January Murph (Tempus Fugit) was injured in the paddock, suffering a fractured pedal bone. After weeks of being stable bound, with corrective shoeing and all sorts of other treatment, news was given yesterday that he is fit to go again!  He will spend many months in ‘rehab’ training, as he has been out of work since November last year. Fortunately he is quite the athlete naturally and keeps himself quite fit which should help in a speedy recovery.

It will be great to have him out and about again.

Happy New Year

Well welcome to 2012.
New for this year is my relocation to Perth to work at a Thoroughbred Park working some pretrainers and doing some re-education of thoroughbreds off the track to be re-homed.

We also welcome on Prydes Easi-Feeds (www.prydes.com.au) as an official sponsor and welcome them to WA. They are now available through Topstock feeds, out of Kewdale and are filtering through stockfeed departments. I currently recommend the Easi-Result and Easi-Response, but all their feeds are fantastic for their palatability and the reassurance that they are a horsefeed only mill, so there is no chance of cross contamination of swabbable substances.

I also welcome 2 new team members – Touchstone Sparkle, by Mikado (Felix sire) out of an Old Spice mare and Touchstone Vegas, by Kirkby’s Stud Jericho out of Touchstone Woodyhalo (dam of Felix). Photos to come.

Wishing everyone a happy new year!