Victoria Bax Blog January 2016 – It’s Game On!
Courtesy of Victoria Bax ’s sponsors Aloeride www.aloeride.co.uk & Golly Galoshes www.gollygaloshes.com
January is always the month’s where things really get a kick start as we are now only a few weeks or so now until the eventing season starts so it is definitely ‘Game On’ with the training regime for my team.
With the weather being so mild albeit rather wet, at least my arena has not been frozen so flat and jump training has been in full swing. Arena cross-country has also been on the cards, in fact I have just taken delivery of 4 new arena cross-country fences which I will be using to train my team, as well as in my arena cross-country clinics over the next couple of month’ss. I was very lucky to have one of my client’s dad build the fences for me and to a very high spec too!
Of course I had to be the one to test ride them too and I am thrilled with them. I hope my clients who get to use them agree!
Thankfully my Grey Tilly, seems to be coming back into the work zone; it’s only taken a couple of month’s and she only had one month off at the end of last season but she has taken full advantage of this and been a real challenge!
She certainly made up for it though when she was faced with the cross-country fences, having not seen a solid fence since October and she took them all on very boldly. In addition to this I have been trailing new brakes with her as she is incredibly wilful and head strong but very soft in the mouth so anything too strong is not the answer. I have had a couple of controlled jump sessions with a combination nose band and just her fulmer snaffle, so hopefully that will work for a while. The single joint appears to be working so far, so fingers crossed this continues to work.
The youngest of my team Frankie is showing some real talent in all aspects and I am thrilled with how far he has come over the last couple of month’s. I can’t wait to get him out this year.
Very sadly I made the decision to send my old event mare Popps over the rainbow a couple of weeks ago, which was an awful decision to have to make, but the right one. She has had terrible trouble over her time with many issues which I have tried to address as best as possible. Before I bought her she had been pushed from pillar to post and so it was nice to have been able to give her a stable home for the last 7years of her life, where she made it successfully up the British Eventing ranks to Novice level. Unfortunately Kissing Spines finally got the better of her. She was in pain, un-rideable and unhappy in herself on a daily basis so the decision was made. I will always be forever grateful to her for restoring my confidence and bringing me back to eventing following my accident 3 years ago. Thank you Popps, you will be missed xxx.
I am in the midst of planning my eventing season, but am having to scale back a little in order that I can afford to run all 4 of my horses as we all know nothing with horses is cheap, let alone eventing! It is lovely owning all 4 of my horses outright but my bank balance doesn’t agree!
To fund my eventing I have been busy working overtime coaching, running clinics and taking in schooling liveries over the winter period. I still have a few month’s of schooling liveries booked in and a couple more winter clinics so hopefully my bank account should look a bit healthier soon!
Good luck everyone and here’s to another amazing year of competing.
Suzanne Ashton, Founder of Everything Horse (Est, 2012), has a BA Hons in Marketing Management and a Diploma in Equine Science. Suzanne has ridden and owned horses all her life and has twelve years of experience in marketing, writing, design, SEO, and website creation.