Today I was super excited to get on someone different and familiar that being 22 year old cob Jack! He is such a funny horse as he takes the mic out of you half the time and mostly does what he wants. He also spends the first 20 minutes trying to convince you that he is very old and delicate and would rather not be ridden today. However when you catch him in a good mood he is brilliant, and I’m hoping to take him XC in the warmer months.

Recently it’s been unusually warm for February and when I took Jack’s rug off he was covered in sweat underneath it. At first I was pretty worried about him and gave him a good brush down trying to cool him a little, and decided to not work him too hard today but to simply do a little test and see how it went.

On warming up Jack seemed a little slow however after a few transitions he perked up a little and began to understand what we were up to. Throughout I didn’t really concentrate on my legs too much however I did notice that I was pretty much constantly nudging him with my leg in order to keep him going at times. I tried to keep control of this as well as place my hands in the right position so that my elbows were continuously bent. This I found pretty useful as in one part of the test you have to give and retake the reins, in the past when I have done this test I found that I did not get a very high mark for the movement and it probably was because of my hands!

When it came to filming the test I felt very sorry for my cameraman Luke as out of four attempts we only managed to complete the test once! I found that when warming up Jack was fine with transitions and wasn’t looking at anything down the long side, however when it came to filming it was though he knew and decided to look and swerve bending his head to the outside. Thank goodness it wasn’t a real competition as we would not have got very far! On another attempt at filming Jack decided to buck into the canter transition – it’s one of his qwerks – this has happened before when competing and the judge noticed and gave me a rather disappointing score of 4 for the movement. So I gave him a quick whiz around the school once more and practiced the transition and the movement, however when it came to filming again he did an even bigger buck!

At this point I could tell he was really hot and bothered and not in the mood for any more dressage. So instead I took him on a little hack and gave him a good long walk round to cool him off whilst Luke walked the dogs as well. It was a great way to end and to give Jack a chance to cool down after sweating under his rug all day. When we got back I gave him a little wash down and tried to even his fur out a little and turned him back out naked as the sun was still shining.

When looking at the test though it isn’t actually too bad, there are some moments where he was even working over his back nicely and getting his head down – as he has to be in a really good mood for you to ask that – and the buck that I worried about before was barely noticeable, so hopefully the judges won’t be too harsh about that!

If you want to see my video please click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_LLKq-4dUE&t=16s

And if you’re interested in entering online dressage competitions, read more on my ‘Competing’ tab where you can find out how to enter, and who I compete with.