Just an excuse to show off some photos :)

Hi everyone! Hope you're good! Emmie and I are doing great and I'm really excited to kick start our season next week.

Since my last post, I went over to Osberton to do some water/XC schooling with my friend which was great. Emmie and I have a "thing" about jumping into water so I got her to walk through a stream, jump a showjump in and out, then progressed down to some steps in and finally a big Novice drop in. She did everything great and then slammed the breaks on for the last one, which she has jumped before. I actually was really proud of her because we worked through it and eventually she was jumping down like a pro. I tend to just switch off on approach and allow her to drop off my leg and stop, since she doesn't do it very often. With these jumps I need to really ride and let her know we are going!

We also went for an Arena Eventing clinic with Beatrice Stocks. Again I had a really great lesson. I have come out of every lesson with Beatrice feeling very positive and excited to practise what I've learned, which is such a great feeling. Emmie was really pinging so I just need to ride her like that and we are all set! It was nice to get some practise with XC style fences (corners, skinnies, angles and combinations) in the safety of an arena and also without having to kit up for a full xc session!

And last but by no means least, my wonderful colleague and friend Sarah came and do an impromptu photoshoot with Emmie and I. I can't thank her enough, I have got some really beautiful pictures that I can cherish forever. I would definitely recommend, even if you don't get a pro photographer, to get a friend with a half decent camera to take pictures of you and your horse to cherish. For some reason, in the zoo world we all splash out on quite nice fancy cameras so I'm surrounded by people who can take a damn good picture on a damn good camera - lucky me! 

I'll post a few on here (if I can pick just a few!) - she did a great job capturing our relationship :) I also think Emmie should be a horse model - she's such a poser and just loves the camera! 

Thanks for reading! Hopefully my next post will be a positive competition report!