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Short but sweet blog this month as it has been a very exciting but incredibly busy month for me. I accepted my university offers so if all goes to plan, I will be going to Hartpury in September to study Applied Animal Science with Therapy which will hopefully lead me into a career in animal physiotherapy.
It does finally feel that all of my hard work is finally starting to pay off – having missed a lot of my 6th form years due to my anxiety disorder and obviously the national lockdowns it is a bit of a miracle that I have been able to bounce back and be on track to achieving the grades that I need. I don’t want to jinx it though, but it does feel that the pressure from school is beginning to get lifted and I can start positively thinking about my next stages in life. I am counting down the days until my last exam, and I can 100% focus on the horses and purely just enjoying life with academic stress hanging over me. 21st May cannot come fast enough!
Both of the ginger girls have been super recently. Queen Evita and I went to our first competition since December. We only did the unaffiliated PYO Elementary but came away with 65% - our best score so far as a partnership and it was only our third test together. There were a few silly mistakes on my behalf, a 15m circle that was more a 20m, letting her run through her shoulder in one of the leg yields and a pretty pathetic medium trot but when looking back to January, where I had my huge confidence wobble, I never would’ve thought that I would be back out competing and picking apart the imperfections in the test rather than being pleased that I just got through it.
A huge added bonus was that I loved every second of it, especially our medium canter, it really reminded me what this sport is all about. I have just booked my first BD competition with Evita for 16th May and I am beyond excited – we are doing Elementary 43 again so lots of test riding practice in my lessons coming up to it and we will be good to go! I haven’t done BD since October with my previous pony Cardi so I am really looking forward to getting back out at affiliated level – this test will also be my first affiliated elementary which adds that little bit of extra excitement.
Missy, I have slightly put on the back burner while my exams are going on and my incredible trainer is doing the majority of work with her– she is only rising 4 and there really is no point in rushing her, so with me she is enjoying lots of hacking at the moment, she even had her first little adventure onto the cross country course – I think I will need to get my brave pants on before we attempt a little log though, but you never know, we could be eventers in the making!
She even met a herd of cows on her way up to the cross country and considering she had never seen cows before after a little spook she walked confidently straight past! She is such a brave and clever little mare and from the qualities she has shown so far, I am beyond excited to be a part of her journey, and for her to be a part of mine. The future is starting to look very bright in all aspects of life.