A Guest Blog from Sam Ireson

Well where to start?! I’s been a little while since my last update. Rabbit has of course been an absolute superstar as always.

We went to two further Area Festivals. One went horribly wrong due to unforeseen circumstances and resulted in a very tense Rabbit. The second I’m pleased to say went a lot better than the others have, but my lack of ring practice resulted in a bit of a rusty test. We still have our fingers crossed for a wild card and will let you know if we get one.

In the meantime I decided I need to put a bit more effort into my position and seat and body aids, I therefore took a trip up to see Sarah Davenport at Equimotion and I’m pleased to report she is amazing. I went to look at my canter aids to hopefully improve my simple changes but we never even got that far. Sarah spent a lot of time working on getting me more even through my seat bones and preventing me from blocking forward and sideways movement with my thighs. I felt a huge difference and I’m looking forward to using it to help my riding. I’m definitely going for further sessions and would recommend her to anyone.

Last week we went on an adventure for our first stay away show at the Midway championships. Rabbit was so good and relaxed the whole weekend. It’s so nice to know that stay-aways will not be a problem.

With regard to the tests they were definitely at different ends of the scale. The first day Rabbit warmed up beautifully, but when we went into the test he dropped off my leg. I didn’t realise it happened so our test was seriously lacking forward momentum and it showed in our marks. I had a good chat with Leonie and we came up with a different plan for day two. I’m pleased to say it made a massive difference, with a 4% increase in my score despite it being a harder test.

I’ve come to the conclusion I need more ring experience. I’m going to make sure we get out at least once a month to help us improve as this is definitely a skill our mine that needs improvement. With this in mind we are off to Stourport equestrian centre on Friday to have another go.

© Sue Palmer, The Horse Physio, 2021

Treating your horse with care, connection, curiosity and compassion