February is never an easy month, you're almost at the end of a long, cold winter but the season just isn't quite there!! However the excitement of getting to the first event and starting to get the horses out cross country schooling and show jumping and the fact there are only 28 days in February means March always comes around fast enough!!
We currently have 20 horses in work, a few of which are working pupil horses and we start our day at 7am when one person feeds the horses. I like the yard to be quiet whilst the horses are eating as I feel that some of the fussier eaters benefit from no disturbances. After this everyone else starts mucking out at 7:30 and, as we can't turn out at the moment, every horse goes on the walker for half an hour in the morning as well as being worked that day. Sam will tend to start riding at about 9am then it’s all go from there!!!
We are lucky that again we have a great team of staff for this season from all over the world... Aussie, Swedish and the Isle of Man (if you can claim that makes you 'foreign'!) We are based near to William Fox-Pitt which means that we tend to meet up with his team and head out for dinner or cook for one another, when time permits. As we get closer to the season the days do tend to get that bit longer however we all try to make sure we do something 'non horsey' a few nights a week
We each have a day off a week when I head home to Bath which is only about an hour away from the yard and spend my day off with my family, take my dog Lily for a walk, go shopping or I also enjoy going to watch my brother play for the Bath Rugby team! I was lucky enough to be taken on a cooking course at the Bertinet Bakery for a day a few weeks ago, it can be hard to find inspiration to cook after a long day but this definitely gave me some inspiration
There has been an unbelievably exciting arrival at Symphony Farm over the past week .... our brand new Empire lorry!!! I can even explain the difference it will make to horses and humans this season, it’s the ultimate comfort for both and very fancy!!! A very, very big pat to the beautiful Paulank Brockagh for all her efforts to make something like this happen, she sure loves now travelling in ultimate style
We had a few days of National Camp training at the Unicorn Trust recently. We are very lucky as we get stay there and be looked after by the amazing cook Fran for a few days and we certainly leave a few pounds heavier after her cooking! It was a very intense few days of training, running through 3 and 4 star dressage tests, training with Gareth Hughes and a great day’s competition at the Tapners new business venture Wickstead Horse Play. It's also nice to catch up with the other head girls as we all live quite a way from one another and share our winter stories!!
Scarily, it’s only seven weeks until Badminton and we are about to head to our first event of the year, Aldon. It's very local to us, only 40 minutes down the road but we are heading out with a bang with almost every horse going! As I write we are heading to Gareth Hughes' for a few days dressage training ready to put the new lorry through its paces!!
