S is for...

S is for a summer of schooling, socks, studying, sunshine, success and scales of training plus many more that have been the theme so far this summer!

The last few months have flown by and I've been a bit behind on my blog but it gives me lots to write about as there's so much to catch up on. 

The showjumpingshire has been limited to walking out on hacks as her arthritis has got quite bad but hopefully if we can shift some of her excess weight it might help her get more mobile, however she is still bright eyed and full of mischief so there's life in the old girl yet.

I am very proud to say after all the hard work and set backs with Socks we have finally made it out competing!!!!  We decided to attempt an unaffiliated dressage evening competition, amazingly my jacket and breeches still fitted as they have been at the back of the cupboard for a year due to lack of horsepower!  The evening was better than I could have hoped, little Socks not only managed to stay in the arena for the test but coped with seeing white boards and a warm up arena for the first time to get placed bringing home a rosette and scoring over 70%!!! We have been schooling working on the scales of training and earlier in June had fun training at the Unicorn Trust with the TTT then at Hartpury for the BD South West Senior camp, for the first time ever we completed a test in a long arena (I had to do a quick crash course on where the extra letters were) and scored respectfully over 60% in our first novice with lovely feedback from the judge.  

Not wasting time I decided to jump in and take Socks to her first affiliated competition to see how it went.  We went to Summerhouse in Gloucester, a venue she hadn't been to before (and I had never seen it without jumps in the arena, looked very strange) I was absolutely amazed with how she coped, other than a little spooky causing tension she performed well and to top it off brought a rosette home and scored high enough to earn our first qualification to the Area Festivals :)

For now we are enjoying being back out competing but I am missing my showjumping so much, hopefully not for too much longer!!!  In the meantime I have also been busy studying towards a sports psychology qualification to add something extra to my teaching and also hopefully help me too gain 'the winning mind'!