So I am finally back home for the summer and have been so for a month now! I can’t believe how quickly it is going however I also have 30 books to read for my course, so I have been a little preoccupied!

A couple of weeks ago my horsey bestie came all the way from Essex to visit me in Nottingham, and she sure put me to work! Recently when I have been riding Jack I find that every time we go into the canter transition he decides to buck, I thought seeing Jack it would just be his naughty behaviour being a grumpy old man and all, however it turns out it was me, (and a bit of him too now thinking about it)! My canter transition has never been amazing, and so from the ground Katie could see that I bent forwards slightly, and so made it easier for him to buck me off if I was already half way out of the saddle, hence why he decided to buck in an effort to get me off. To correct this, I simply had to sit deep within the saddle and glue myself to it, keeping my back straight and shoulders back, as well as keeping my chest forwards so then it was harder for him to get me off.

After this, I found it a lot easier to work with Jack, we were able to get him working with a great energy and then allowed him to work over his back – which he was not happy about at all! In the end we had all worked really hard, as Katie warmed him up and got him going, something which I found much harder to do myself later on! We then gave the prelim 1 test a go, and Katie said it was obvious that when I knew I was doing the test I came to stiffen up immediately and that caused Jack to not work as well as he had been doing. We kept going through the test though and there were amazingly no bucks as we went into canter, or at all for that matter! Katie also told me to get into the mindset that when filming the test that this might not be the video that I submit to the judges, and so with that thought in mind I should relax more and have a better test.

Clearly all our hard work paid off as when the results came Jack and I placed nicely in second with out highest ever score together of 68.95%, it was such a shame that someone else got 69% otherwise we would have won our first class! Oh well, I am still pleased with the progress we have made compared to our shocking results of last month being a mere 60%, which was our worst score together…

To see the video entry click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6UHwR34kiM&t=14s

Will be back with more content soon!