Hi Everyone,

First of all I would like to wish our sponsors, EquestrianClearance.com a very Happy and Successful New Year and thank them most sincerely for their continued support.

My team will be out and about again this season waving the flag for their superb range of everything “horsey”.  One ask, do you have anything for my baby son Archie so he can advertise too!

I would also like to wish all the readers a Happy New Year and hope they achieve their equestrian dreams this year.

Now, to go back a little to last year, Andrew and I set off for Olympia with Des (Kilmannon Black Wizard) just before Christmas and thoroughly enjoyed our selves.

We got Des settled and checked into our hotel, makes a change from the lorry, and then went out to dinner with a group of friends.  Up early the next day and off to exercise Des, he does not need much as he is such an old hand at this game.

The Mountain & Moorland classes have a new format this year which includes four judges, two appraised the way of going and held up marks and then the other two  judged conformation and breed type but withheld marks as we would know who had won, this would prevent the excitement of not knowing until the presentation.

Des and I went into second place overall on our show, he deserved it as he gave a superb display and as I can trust him not to put a foot wrong I could really show the public how a Dales should really perform.

Sadly his next set of marks let him down, I have heard that one judge did not like the ponies being clipped as it is not “au natural” but a heavy winter coat is , in my opinion, cruel.  Ponies sweat and then get cold with their coats not drying.  Still, that is their opinion and I have to abide by that, so we ended up tenth.

Des went home with his owner Gill Simpson for his holiday and Andrew and I did a little shopping before hitting the road home.  We had left Archie with Mum and we both missed him terribly.

The next day mum and dad left for Cheshire to stay with Sarah and Robert and to have some Christmas grandparent time with Sam.  They also caught up with old friends and returned home just in time for Christmas Eve which meant mum was flat out to get organised for cooking.

We love entertaining and on Christmas morning we have a crowd of neighbours in for a Bucks Fizz breakfast with Scrambled eggs and Smoked Salmon after we have done all the horses, so by the time 5pm arrives mum has cooked the turkey and all the trimmings and starters and welcomed yet more people for Christmas Dinner.  We had a lovely time made more special as it was Archie’s first Christmas.

To say he had a lot of presents was an understatement, he was so excited, he loved the lights on the tree and all the razz ma tazz that goes with it.

Mum has sold Lily to a lovely local lady called Lisa, it is her first horse so Lily is staying with me for a while so she gets used to her and she is coming for lessons.  With the weather changing I had to get Cameron and Forgery in, they had lost a little weight but it won’t harm them as I can start to put it back in all the right places.

They are not in work yet so still go out in the field all day.

The show jumpers all came back from their holidays before Christmas and started road work and some jumping.  The first show is the New Year show at Hand near Bristol so Andrew set off last Thursday with Elektrik, Winnie , Val, Sylvie and Zermi, meeting up with Necker and Joe.

Andrew has a new groom Leah, well that was a baptism of fire for her first show, five horses and staying off site with Daisy Davies. It was a  very hectic four days, not finishing jumping until 10pm or later at night , then a 10 minute drive back to the yard and stabling up, cleaning the lorry etc.  Who says show jumping is glamorous!  But it was a good show.

Zermi had a second in the 1.25m she won the 1.20m and was third in the small Grand Prix.  Elektrik was “schooling” the first couple of days, because if you remember his last show was on the awful surface at that new centre so Andrew wanted to give him back his confidence.  But once he had it he was second in the small Grand Prix.

Winnie won the 1.30m and had unlucky fences, but this is Winnie we are talking about.  Val had a fourth and fifth in her two 1.30m classes.  Sylvie was second in the 1.15m.  Necker was secnd in the main Grand Prix and Joe had a first in the Foxhunter and third in the mini Grand Prix, so you can see how busy it was.

Andrew also had some novices for other people and had between nine and 11 to ride each day but with the horses just back after a rest he was extremely pleased with them, but you can imagine poor Leah, she really had to learn quickly what Andrew wanted and when.

I went up for the day on Sunday and took Archie to watch his daddy jumping.  He seemed very excited about it all and if any of you read my facebook page you will have read that in his cot that night he could not settle to sleep and I found him at the top end of it waving his legs in the air and trying to kill his teddy.  We reckon teddy had had a fence down! Perhaps he will start out on 12.2hh jumping ponies.

Now it is the start of the New Year, I still have baby weight to lose but am now getting into show mode, my boys start work any day, Andrew is going to start building my new lorry and soon I will start sending for schedules.  I am so looking forward to taking my boys (and Archie) to shows.

Will talk again soon.

Victoria