Hey everyone, Chuffy here!
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What difficult times we are all facing this year, I hope you are all managing to stay safe and occupied at the moment. I can honestly say I haven’t been struggling too much with isolation as I love my home and horses so being able to spend more quality time has been really lovely. Although I'll admit now that I’m starting to come to the end of my “To-Do List” my enthusiasm and motivation has dropped significantly.
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Usually I’m not one to wear nice clothes on the yard (because they are most likely going to get muck on them), but in an attempt to keep upbeat I am making more of an effort these days. Pairing items like the Morston T-shirt with my Navy Jodhpurs, work well for my casual style & the block colours make it so effortless to coordinate. Why not get a little dressed up and feel good about yourself right now!
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Settling down into home life with all competitions on hold has meant I’ve been able to focus on what I want to do with each horse. For the more experienced ones on the yard - being the likes of Dirk, Bubbles and Clarke they are all reasonably sensible so are being kept ticking over. I am doing some school work with them, including dressage days and pole work with different cavaletti exercises to keep things fresh. Here's an example of one of my exercises:
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So far, they have all been working really well! I try and vary the scenery as much as possible, taking them to the fields and trotting them up and down the wonderful hills we are lucky to have at our base here in Surrey. Along with being great for their brains, this is also excellent strengthening work for them without getting them too fit.
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Looking at our younger group of horses, I have recently re-backed 3 of my 4YO's Candy, Ivor & Iris. Ivor is a full brother to our 6YO Morelands G-Vine (Gus), who had a successful tour jumping the age classes out in Spain earlier on in the year.. pre-lockdown. Morelands Hero (Hugo) has just come back into work, after a more extended holiday than planned (thanks Corona!). He was supposed to be coming in for the start of eventing, which of course sadly didn’t happen, so we are all still waiting to see how that will pan out. He is such a friendly, nice horse to have on the yard and looks like a good event type. They have all behaved very well and look to be exciting ones for when this is all over.
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I feel so lucky and grateful at the moment to be based where we are and have lots of lovely land to ride around, which is safe and a perfect playground for the horses. It also provides great daily turnout for the horses on the yard and holiday turnout for our youngstock and retired ones.
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So that's the roundup of my news from the last couple of months during lockdown. It is nearly impossible for anyone to plan right now and for the moment I am taking things as they come. As I write, I have seen the sad news that one of my favourite local venues, Hickstead, have cancelled their big 5* show in July which is devastating for all involved and gutting for Dirk as it's his favourite party to go to. And then I have got the equally sad news that Blenheim Horse Trails has also had to cancel, completely understandable decision but I shall be sad not to be able to ride around at that beautiful park.
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What keeps me going the most is knowing that we’ve got so many amazing people out there working night and day to save lives! We are incredibly lucky to have the NHS, so I just wanted to do something to put a smile on some of their faces and say thank you to all those workers. My Mum and I came up with the idea (picture above) to lay out some poles and make a fun video with my miniatures, check it out here on my socials.
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In the meantime I hope everyone stays safe & well and enjoys some downtime! Chuffy x
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