Well folks, it's been a while. This time last year I took Sid to his final ever event. Or at least, so we thought. But it turns out his protegee, Cargo, does not enjoy travelling solo. His name is one of the biggest ironies... So because I had an 8am dressage time, and I will sell my soul for an extra half an hour of sleep, I decided to bring Sid along for the ride to Calmsden. I ask you, would you fancy spending the dawn hours standing on a ramp waiting for a part-mule, part-horse to deign to walk onto the lorry?! Turned out to be a bad idea (who knew) given Sid hasn't been out in 9 months. A ..read more

After a few weeks of self-imposed furlough (four legs, three shoes - twice), Sid was back in business in time for West Wilts. The day began with a win: McDonald's gave me a double sausage & egg McMuffin by mistake! Woop, sticking it to the man (and by 'man' I mean Ronald)... We had afternoon times, so I arrived at the yard and began calmly plaiting Sid up. I had failed to grasp that his friends were out in the field and he was not. Naturally, this resulted in angry munching on hay and his signature ("F off") move; waiting until I am precariously balanced and holding a full plait, then yank ..read more

Picture this: it is 11pm at night, I am a leeetle tipsy following a lovely romantic meal with First Husband, and I am attempting to connect my laptop to a fancy WiFi printer so that I can print off my bib number for Tweseldown the next day. First Husband had obligingly picked the b****** up from Curry’s earlier in the day, but had (quite incorrectly) assumed I could take it from there. I was also full of cheese (because I don’t care how good the dessert menu is; I will always head straight for the cheese board). My nerves and excitement (and possibly the gin) kept me awake for most of the nigh ..read more

Controversial statement: we are all, as riders, far too hard on ourselves. In fact,my name is Hannah and I am a self-critic-aholic. I really am a very average rider. I will happily admit that! And most of the time, the main (perhaps evenonly) contributor to a clear round or a nice dressage test is Sid. But have I ever given myself a pat on the back for a job well done…..or even a job “just about done”?! Spoiler alert: the answer isNEVER. And it strikes me that, as much as lockdown is a chance to improve my riding, so too is it a chance to work on a Positive Mental Attitude (or “PMA” – not to b ..read more

Have you ever finished a cross country round and thought, wow, that was flawless? Well, not me! I will happily admit that I am pretty far left on the scale of “just trying not to fall off” to “have been round Badminton 4 times…this year.” I am always over-analysing videos of my riding and tearing them apart through self-criticism. Mostly, I use this to get better (sometimes, I use it to wallow in my lack of talent). However, for some reason I have never quite taken this approach to cross country. If I buy a cross country video, it’s because I want evidence of a round that, for once, wasn’t a t ..read more

Well, I finally cracked. Like an egg into a frying pan, I cracked. 7 weeks into confinement with only First Husband and his beloved PlayStation for company (which he keeps far warmer at night than his wife, by the way) and I cracked. I can't be the only one having countless conversations with my lesser half "bodily present" in the room, all brain cells fully focused on Call of Duty?! Here's the thing. I miss eventing. I miss the thrill of cross country, I miss the excitement of getting Sid all plaited up and ready the night before, but most of all, I miss the possibility of bumping into Second ..read more

“What would be really good for you, I think, is a bit of B.S.J.A. over winter…” And, just like that, my heart plummeted to the ground. Icy fear curled itself all around my body. Acid rolled around in the pit of my stomach. B.S.J.A. - we all know what that acronym really stands for: Blood-curdling Sycho’s (yes, I KNOW, but it is a silent P)! Jousting for a go at the warm up fence… Apocalypse. The warm up arena might as well be a firing range, and NO ONE IS ON THE BIT. Altogether, the thought was quite distressing. Nevertheless, I am consistently terrible at show-jumping, and so I decided that d ..read more

OH MY LORD, when will eventing return?! I don’t know about you, but I feel as if the 2019 season is some fuzzy memory I can’t quite recall. Probably for the best, that. We are currently in the hostile outlands, technically known as “the middle bit between the seasons”. Sid is fat. I AM FATTER. And all this had got me feeling rather depressed. Not one to dwell on my own misery (at least, not after the first few weeks) I decided that Sid and I would go on an ADVENTURE. For company, we dragged along a friend and her pony, Murph, who is singularly talented, in that he has managed to get fatter tha ..read more

Lately, I have been experiencing what felt like a never-ending run of bad luck…I mean, I am literally the poster child for eliminations. However, after a few confidence-building runs at BE90, I felt like it was time to get back to 100. And not one to hang around (a character trait that First Husband should be very wary of), I downed a bottle of Hendricks, took a sip of Indian tonic water and entered the next unaffiliated ODE at Tweseldown. This morning, after snoozing my alarm several times, I finally decided to depart from the comfort of my wonderful, wonderful duvet. I regretted it instantly ..read more

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, this is NOT an event report. But I simply couldn’t resist giving you a quick update on our journey!! Sid and I have been bootcamping in every sense of the word lately, because I am utterly determined to finish the season with a healthy balance in our “Bank of Confidence”. To this end, Saturday saw us visit international eventer, Alberto Giugni, for a showjumping lesson. We warmed up by jumping an upright a few times off each rein, which grew at an alarming rate. The tone was set: it was not to be a cross-pole kind of day. Then, without further ado, we began jumping a shor ..read more