Product Review: Gaiters

So as I mentioned on Christmas, I was lucky enough to get a pair of gaiters. My reasons for wanting either these or half chaps was quite simply due to my jodhpurs riding up and also one instructor had recommended I get long boots to help with my leg position. Gaiters felt like  a happy medium.

My parents invested in a pair from Ride Away for me, and I have to say I really like them. The leather is synthetic (i.e. not actually leather), and it isn't a suede-like texture at all so it doesn't rub the horse. They are so easy to care for as they are wipe clean, and it only took a couple of Pony Club sessions before I was able to quite easily able to put them on in a moving car.

At first I was little unsure about whether they were too small, as I hadn't measured my leg very accurately, but they seem to be okay now. No doubt they have already started to mould to my leg shape in some way like a back protector, but also because my heel stays down (I'll explain this in a second). I would definitely make sure you measure accurately though, and I will bear it in mind for the future because I would have felt awful and impatient if I needed to send them back to exchange them for a bigger size.

Right, so the heel thing. When I first starting to wear them I found that the zip was constantly riding up. This was a bit irritating, especially when it was half undone by the end of the lesson, usually after jumping. I didn't really know what to think because I couldn't be certain that it was the product or if I was wearing them incorrectly in some way. Rather than worry about it I just made sure to push the zip back down whenever I had stopped moving in a lesson. Then I had a flatwork lesson and it suddenly all became clear.

My heels are notoriously bad. They constantly creep upwards, and I realised that this was causing the zip to unfasten. The back of my jodhpur boot causes enough stress for it to start riding up. When I had the flatwork lesson they still rode up, but I was more aware of my feet and eventually put two and two together. I recently had a lesson in which my heels were surprisingly well behaved, and the zip hardly moved at all.

Given that it was my fault that the zip doesn't stay still, I don't think I could honestly blame the product. It's my heels that are causing the issue, and that's just something I'll have to work on seen as heels are meant to be down anyway. Can't exactly criticise a product given that I'm the one that's doing something wrong! But they are very comfortable, and they don't slip downwards at all. My reason for wanting them is because I was getting fed up of my jodhpurs riding up and exposing my socks. Since wearing the gaiters, my ankles haven't gotten cold once and I don't end up with horse hair in my boots either.

I would definitely recommend this product because it's giving me more motivation that usual to keep my heels down, and having them on encourages me to ride with stirrups that aren't too short.

Do you wear gaiters/half chaps when you go riding? If so, what do you think of them?

Until next time.

Dressage Competition

Hello everyone!

Can we take a moment to appreciate how pretty
it is? Absolutely love the colours!

I had a brilliant time at the dressage competition today. Rowan was absolutely fantastic, so willing to
respond to me and he was so straight on the free rein section. He was so fabulous that we were awarded second place! Having never so much as placed at a competition before I was in a state of disbelief. It was only a friendly competition that the riding school hosts for its clients, but honestly I felt so proud (mostly surprised though).

My test was flawed, I won't deny that. On the first 20m circle we picked up the wrong canter lead, but I didn't really notice until the second circle at E, and then I was unsure what to do because I didn't want the instructors judging the competition to think he'd broken or that I forgot where the transition was supposed to be. It was this that cost us first place, but this is just something I will learn from.

Whilst I was at the stables I realised, a little belatedly, that they are holding a dressage championship of sorts. There are another two dressage competitions this year. Unfortunately I don't think I will be able to do the third competition as chances are I'll be on the other side of the country at university, but I can't wait for the summer for the next competition!

For today's competition I entered myself for the prelim test, but I'm thinking that for the summer show I may try novice for the first time. I'll have to learn an entirely new test which is exciting (the dressage competition before today was also prelim 16), but I'm not 100% yet on if I'll move up a group. I may stick with the prelim if the test is different so that I can establish whether I did so well because I knew the test just that well or whether it was because I can actually ride. I really hope it's the latter!

Have you participated in any shows recently, or do you have plans to? I'd love to know.

Until next time!

Dogs Trust

I have a bit of a different theme for today's post, so bear with me if this doesn't interest you (although I hope it does, because it's a good cause). Anyway, I recently started volunteering at a Dogs Trust shop, and I just wanted to talk a bit about volunteering in general.

My school has been pretty insistent in the past year or so that we dedicate some time to volunteering. This could be in school or outside of it, and to be honest it was just easier for me to give up my time to mentor a year seven in English. I was doing this before my head of sixth form started to remind us about it, so it was natural just to use this as my volunteering. I didn't really look about volunteering elsewhere until recently, and even then it was more to gain experience as I'd had a few unsuccessful job applications.

It was actually a bit of luck that I landed the role. I had gone into town to get some bits and bobs for my EPQ and for Christmas, and decided to pop into the Dogs Trust shop to see if they had some cards. As I was paying I asked if they had any places available, and the woman at the till (who is now a colleague haha) got me to meet the manager. She gave me a form to fill in and organised a time for an interview for the following weekend. I had a work experience placement but that was all I had to go on, so my retail training was limited. The manager was lovely, however, and assured me that they would show me how to use the till and things like that.

Since then, every Wednesday I give up some of my time to help them out. Sometimes it is quiet, and it does get a little boring but I realise that it is completely worth it, and not just in terms of having something to put on my CV. It's worth it because in some small way I'm making a difference. My being there enables to manager/assistant manager to get on with other jobs that need doing, and although I'm not selling the products like a street vendor mights, I still get to serve the customers that are contributing monetarily to Dogs Trust.

Dogs Trust is a brilliant charity. The 'a dog is for life, not just for Christmas' campaign is probably one of the better known charity slogans. They do an incredibly jobs of rehoming and rescuing dogs but it can't be done without the help of people like you and me. If you would like to find out more about Dogs Trust, click here and you'll be able to find out more about what they do, how to get involved yourself and of course see if there are any dogs at your nearest centre that need a good home.

We all give up our time, whether its for reading a book or to watch a TV programme, so why not use that spare time to help a good cause?

Until next time.

EPQs, mocks and coursework

Greetings, readers!

I trust you are doing well? For me, January is proving to be a very busy month and this is primarily down to school so I sincerely hope you aren't all sharing in my feelings of stress.

The workload of my Extended Project Qualification is continuing as strongly as ever. I do find it really interesting. I guess that's why they let us pick the topic - if I was just given a title to work with I would have dropped the qualification months ago. As it is, my EPQ is all about Natural Horsemanship. I'm so bad (or good, depending on your point of view) at procrastinating that the months where I should have been completing all my research went to waste and the actual essay writing part was delayed. I'm getting back on track now thanks to an extension, but it is still a lot to deal with given other school work that demands attention. For more organised people, I'm fairly sure the EPQ is a breeze.

On top of that I have mock exams and more coursework to complete. It feels like Christmas was several months ago as it really wasn't much of a break. As soon as Christmas and Boxing Day were out of the way I began revising for the mocks in earnest because I really hadn't been too productive. This mostly involved preparing for my History mock as it is probably the subject I struggle with the most. My teacher had thankfully taken pity on us and provided us with the questions that we would be able to answer in the mock examination, so at least I could properly revise with the question in mind. On the plus side, I was off timetable for mock week so at least I get a bit of an extra holiday in that sense.

Now that the mocks are out of the way, however, it means that I now have two pieces of coursework to complete. Whilst these are shorter than the EPQ (these are 2,000 and 3,000 words) it is so much harder because you actually have to stick to the word limit. This is quite difficult given the amount you have to include to get a decent mark, so here's to a month of writing, editing, rewriting and more editing on really depressing topics!

In all honesty though, I knew this month was going to be busy. Now that school is about to start again all the teachers will be very aware that we pretty much only have four months before we go on study leave so there isn't much time left to complete the courses and do practice papers and the likes. Even so, knowing is different to experiencing. Is it foolish to be optimistic that it won't be too bad? I hope not, because optimism is definitely one of the few things keeping the anxiety at bay!

I hope you all had a lovely holiday and are able to have a relaxing start to the new year.

Until next time!

Christmas!

Festive greetings, everyone!

I hope you are all have an excellent time regardless of whether you celebrate Christmas or not! I love Christmas, mostly because of the decorations. One of my fondest childhood memories is walking the dogs in the evening and going down this one particular street where everyone seemed to have lights on their roofs and some had giant inflatables and the likes to create various Christmas scenes. I also love Christmas because it means that I get a break from school, and let's face it we can all do with a break!

This year I feel very spoilt as my parents gave me a lot of presents even though  I only asked for one. I always feel guilty asking for things, especially as my birthday is so close to Christmas, but I really wanted some half chaps/gaiters (which I will be doing a product review of either January or February most likely). I didn't ask for anything else, but they still felt the need to buy me miscellaneous items. One of my favourites is a panda onesie, which is the most comfortable thing I have ever worn, although the tail does have to be shifted for some positions to be pain-free! I also got some festive socks, which makes me happy because I always seem to be in need of more. Is it just me who finds socks getting threadbare ridiculously quickly?

I didn't get to enjoy my presents for too long as family came over to ours for Christmas dinner, so I had to be somewhat presentable (and by that I mean dressed in something other than a fluffy panda onesie). I don't think we ever really thank Mum enough for all the effort she puts into Christmas dinner. There isn't a lot of counter space in our kitchen, so it can be difficult and what with me being vegetarian she has to juggle an alternative for me. This year I had a rather delicious nut roast cutlet and as yummy as it was, the most delicious item on the plate was the roast potatoes. Who doesn't love a roast potato? The delightful potatoes were followed by a heavenly Yule Log that left us all feeling rather full and sleepy. Brave was on TV so there for me the afternoon was perfectly relaxing. Disney on Christmas just makes perfect sense. Although I think Frozen would have made more sense given it being set in winter (sort of) and all. Or 101 Dalmations.

One of my other presents that will no doubt come in handy is a boot bag. For things like travelling to and from uni it will definitely be handy to have somewhere secure to stick my jodhpur boots (especially if they've gotten a bit muddy!).

Anyway! I hope you have all had a fantastic day. Did you get something from your wishlist? I'd love to hear what you are all getting up to.

Happy Holidays!

The Competition

Hello, everyone!

First off, I'd like to apologise for taking so long to get around to posting this. I became quite busy and didn't really use my laptop at all, so sorry about that. With that out the way, on with the post!

I did manage to have the Pony Club session before the competition a couple of weeks ago. It gave me a good indicator of what Bails would be like at the competition, and was really good fun - even if we basically destroyed the last jump. I'm getting much better at riding courses now, and so I felt as prepared as I could be for the competition the next day.

The competition itself was really good. Bails was ridden by two other people before me, which was a
bit disappointing as he only went clear with the first person. After that there was one fence he wouldn't hit on the right stride, and he generally was just too excited to think about his feet. Nevertheless, I was mostly just there for the experience as opposed to claiming 1st place. I'm just not that competitive. So I walked away with a rosette that has special written on it, and I am perfectly happy with that. My instructor said it was the best course I had ridden, so whilst I may not have place highly it was still a personal best, and I think that's all that really matters.

My Dad did record the jumping, although I haven't actually seen that video yet, but I think it'll only prove that my position was a bit over the place. The jump that Bails wasn't hitting on the right stride in particular meant I was out of sync with him. I love riding Bails though because I never feel panicked in the approach to a jump, because he is so honest. The only scary part is when you finish the course and he won't stop, and you're not convinced he'll avoid the jumps!

One thing I would really like to work on is changing leg over a jump. Or just a generic flying change. Bails can be quite hard to bring back to a trot, so being able to do either of these things would be helpful in keeping relaxed so I'm not fighting him to come back to a slower pace. On the bright side, my instructor taught me a trick of sorts that enables me to know if I'm going to fast. Instead of counting '1, 2, 3' (because you can count that faster and faster), she told me to recite the days of the week. It being two syllables automatically means you can't say it quite as fast as the numbers, and if you start emphasising each half of it, then you really can't say it all that fast. So 'Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday' is my new jumping chant!

Well that's all from me. I hope you are all well, and I'd love to hear about your competition memories!

Until next time :)

Force of habit

Hello, everyone!

Today I had a private lesson on Bails in preparation for the jumping competition in two weeks time (and also, I couldn't make Pony Club yesterday). It was a good lesson in that my problem with show jumping is not the fences themselves but the fact that it's a course, so we primarily worked on that. My steering tends to go to pot when jumping courses, and I end up with too much energy going sideways instead of forward. My lesson today focussed a lot on my that, and my problem seems to be from things I've been taught over the years.

One of my big issues is that I have a tendency to hold my hands in the wrong position. They are either too low, or I open up the outside hand when turning. The latter problem is something I was taught last year in particular but it's now second nature to me. I do it without thinking. It's also why I end up with lateral movement. I have to teach myself to keep my hands closer together and to fix my outside hand more - which sounds easy, but when you're also being told that you need to be on one seat bone more than the other and elongate a leg to nudge the horse into straightness becomes a bit of challenge. To make it harder, there were lots of changes of rein to mess with my head, because what was left is suddenly right and what was right is left.

Bails was a star as always. When I get it correct he responds straight away, although by the end of the lesson he was knackered and had no energy left. On the bright side, I can now steer a lot better. I'm hoping direction won't be my problem with the course. The only downside of the lesson is that I didn't actually go over any jumps. The instructor just put some poles on the floor. In a way this was good, because it meant I didn't have to worry about light seat position and all that jazz, but it is a negative in that I now haven't jumped for a month and I've put myself in for the upper jumping class.

I'm hoping that I can have one more lesson before the competition, but even if I do it would be with a different instructor - so the new habits I'm trying to learn wouldn't be enforced! It's a bit of a vicious cycle because I have lot of habits that I need to adjust before the competition.

Of course, there's no guarantee that I'll be riding Bails for the competition in a fortnight. I could end up on a youngster, in which case a different riding style would be needed entirely. Bails has been around some pretty high level courses in his time so he knows what to do when it comes to show time. Nevertheless, it's all very confusing!

What are some of your bad habits, and how did you correct them (or realise they existed)?

Until next time!