Here’s a short video from the beach ride at the weekend:

The girls were both good on Saturday at FRC’s dressage. I wanted to get Lucy out on grass after her recent diva behaviour and she managed to hold it together to do a nice, quiet and accurate test that was only a little tense for 64% and Willow did her first ever test on grass for 70% (and a win!). I only did the Intro test on them (was entered for the 60 x 20 Prelim too) as it was mega hot and the flies were dreadful! On Sunday we took the kids to Balmedie Beach with Lewie and Fin riding Izzy and Maddie. Great weather and brilliant fun!

A bit of a mixed bag this weekend.  On Saturday Charley jumped Jack round a few classes and he got better and better with every round.  The last class was 1m and he jumped a lovely clear.  She schooled him round again on Sunday and he was better again!

He’s off to Wales with her to the Home Pony International so it will be interesting to see how much he improves over the 5 days there.

On Sunday, LeeAnn and I headed off to Hopetoun Horse Trials in the new wee lorry with Lucy.  I was feeling really positive about her dressage after Team Grant had worked their magic!  However, with my arena being next to the XC and the warmup the worst I have ever seen Lucy decided everything was far too exciting and completely blew up in her test.  More dressage practice on grass required!  We loaded up and headed home as I really didn’t fancy jumping her in the mood I was in.

The lorry did Edinburgh and back (250 mile round trip) on about £35 of fuel which is seriously impressive and we had time to stop at a car wash on the way back – shiny shiny!

Next step is to get the signwriting off!

The blue lorry went away this week to the first people who came to see it (too cheap I think!) and LeeAnn has a wee 3.5T arriving today which we bought from Sarah and Michael Hamilton at Tillyoch.

In other exciting news, I am now officially a shareholder in Willow, a lovely 16.2 6yo Irish mare that I will be taking Eventing later this season and next year.  She’s been produced for the last couple of years by my pal Martin Dargie and what a cracking job he’s done of her!

Just thought I’d share this with you guys today 🙂

Well, I went to see Lucy at her dressage boot camp for the first time since we dropped her off 10 days ago. Those of you who know me will know that dressage has never been my strongest phase of Eventing and I was always lucky to have people around me that could produce a horse on the flat back in the day. I can manage to ride a half decent test on a well produced horse but a difficult one that needs fixing? Nah. Give me a dodgy one that needs sorting to go SJ or XC and I’d be all over it like a tramp on hot chips but flatwork that needs fixing? Not going to happen.

Lucy has been awesome so far this season, she can be pretty much guaranteed to jump a double clear round 90 and 100 (touch wood!) but the dressage has been going the wrong way – by 10 marks. It’s not the wee mare’s fault, she’s a little tricky but she’s not a bad pony. It’s me, and I know it is.

Anyway, I’m absolutely blown away by the difference Eilidh and her mum Lorraine have made to her. Lorraine is obviously very supportive of her kids and it was her that lunged her (taking care to explain what she was doing, why she was doing it, and what she was looking for) whilst Eilidh finished teaching her eleventy-fifth lesson of the day! Eilidh then jumped on and showed me what she’s been working on and then put me onboard to run through my test for Hopetoun this weekend. Well, I’m fairly sure they’ve swapped her for a different pony! Ok, she’s never going to be a dressage star but by christ, what a difference. Softer, much better outline, contact, throughness etc.

I took a bit of video of Eilidh on her and then Lorraine recorded my run through of the test. I’ve edited it right down but here’s a wee video to give you an idea. It’s still not perfect, but it’s a damn sight closer that I’d have been 12 months from now on my own!

In short, if you have a horse that requires a little ‘re-education’ on the flat then you could do a lot worse than send it to Team Grant! You’ll be pleasantly surprised at the cost, too.

Not much exciting to report today except that we’re having a wee fun show at the yard tonight.  The boys haven’t decided if they want to jump yet as both their ponies jumped both days at the weekend. 

The lorry is for sale though and I am expecting a few people up to look at that tonight so fingers crossed it sells easily – it should do as we’ve just spent a bloody fortune plating it for a year!

I’ll pop a wee update on if the kids jump tonight, otherwise the next update will be after my dressage lesson with Eilidh on Lucy tomorrow evening.

A great and very successful day at the show today. Fin and Lewie both double clear in the Stepping Stones (85cm) to share first prize and both jumped great in the Discovery/90cm Open. Fin had a very unlucky 4 in the jump off by knocking a wing with his foot and Lewie jumped a cracking quick double clear to win!

We took Millie’s wee pony Jack for Charley Hamilton to jump and she rode him great for a double clear and 3rd in the 70cm and a decent round in the 80cm. Jack is looking like he’ll be a bit too sharp for Millie as he starts to fill out and feel better so Charley is going to ride him at shows for a while until we decide what to do with him – keep or sell. Meanwhile, back to the drawing board to find Millie her perfect pony…

Video below of the boys’ rounds in the 90cm.

It was far too nice a day to be stuck in the office all afternoon so I snuck out a couple of hours early to watch the boys have a lesson with Super-Sally. It amazes me how much these boys have come on in a year! Anyway, hopefully that’s them all tuned up for Tillyoch BS all weekend…