Nineteen days and counting - catch up with the busy week

To my amazement my good old self keeps going quite fine on my new regime. It's my nineteen day of work on the trot with no day off and I am not horizontal as yet ;)
There is a special thank you involved here to the person who took the trouble to dig out, package and sell genuine dead sea salt...my muscles are very much eternally grateful. You know when they say regarding training science that you've got to destroy muscle tissue to build a new, stronger one...Well, my muscle fibres are feeling like the living proof of that, tearing process in full swing ;) I'm not complaining by the way, I wanted to get fitter so all is good.

I'm involved in teaching University of Reading Riding Club and on Wednesday we had the Inter Uni Riding Clubs Competition. University of Reading (which has it's Riding Club base at Hall-Place Equestrian Centre) competes in Friendly League which is just a bit of competitive fun. Four teams: Reading, Exeter, Southampton and Guildford tried their skills in dressage and show-jumping in a series of shows throughout the term.
Reading Riding Club came second, Exeter taking first. Our riders did win a couple of matches in the series though.
As part of the event we had to show the horses to the riders first, then each Team took turns to draw the horses they would be riding. All good fun.

Below: getting ready to show off some of the horses for the Dressage part. This is Brandy, a super pony, about 14.1hh but moves like a horse ;) He was on fire during the presentation and made me laugh a lot. Plenty of power in his little legs.

And below is Brie, about 15hh showing off his aptitude for jumping. He has a bit of a funny side and can stop at fillers so I gave him a rather unnecessarily strong ride - he didn't put a foot wrong!

His face is saying: "Erhm, common women, it's 0.60cm not 1.30m, no need to fold like that ;) "

And here are some photos of Reading Team riders: Lucy, Jen, Amy and Jenny.

LUCY AND BRANDY

JEN AND KESTREL

AMY AND BLUE

JENNY AND BRIE

These super horses belong to Hall-Place Equestrian Centre (BHS Where To Train Centre) which is going to be one of the venues involved in my coaching project: Aspire Equestrian Riding Academy.
I think I should re-name it and call it The Night Time Project as that's when I write all the training programmes and website content! I really hope it will be a success and despite the tiredness I am still mega excited about the launch in May.
The list of people who declared the will to be involved is growing and I can tell you now that whoever decides to learn to ride and/or improve their skills via the Academy by buying a Training Programme will be in very capable hands. I have invited variety of instructors and trainers to join the team either as venue based or freelance. Knowing my strengths and weaknesses as a teacher and rider I am making sure other people involved can offer different teaching styles, more advanced skills/knowledge/experience. Hopefully in this way the Academy can cater for variety of riders at all levels.
My aim is to provide the aspiring riders with a wide spread support in various areas of training - something I wanted to find for myself when I was 16 and dreamt big riding dreams. We shall see how it works :)

Kingsley seems to be coping with his lack of tun out quite well. He rests a lot during a day having little naps in between generous helpings of hay. He is still tender in the poll area but as much as on Monday. I did all the "carrot" stretches with him, 5 neck to the withers, 5 neck to the hip, 5 down in between the front legs, same on the other side. I bet one day he will just wrap himself around to touch the hip on the other side ;) He is Mr Flexibility!
Nerve blocks are arranged for next week when Kingsley will meet yet another vet - 5th I think!

On a good note I am having more horses to ride so hopefully might start thinking more seriously about taking next exam...

It's not all work and riding. Somewhere in my 8 day week I am trying to fit a non-horsey time with my dear man. Courtesy of spring weather visiting on Tuesday we had our breakfast by the lake, nice walk in The Gardens and a little wonder around new exhibition in Serpentine Gallery.

Running another Training Day tomorrow, hope it stays drier than today ;)