Start of the Season for Shoestring…

It definitely seems all go at Shoestring Eventing. With the season kicking off I am starting to upload and administer the course photos section of the website that can be quite time consuming. Very proud though to have awesome stats for the website in 2017 with nearly 1 million page views and 46,000 unique users. I also have 2,000 sets of course pictures online.

Looking ahead to this year I have two lovely horses as well as a rather smart 2 year old being left alone to grow and mature. I have been quite open about some self confidence issues that have been troubling me and taking away the enjoyment of the sport. I am working hard to overcome this and bit by bit things are improving.

Ellie has just qualified for the BD regionals with 4 scores of over 70% in 2 shows I am hoping this will transfer to our eventing scores. Whilst without a doubt the dressage has improved we are a bit behind on jumping work and with this in mind as well as my confidence work I have decided to step down to BE90 for our early runs.  Ellie will start the season at Goring and then we will be doing Larkhill and Bicton. Sadly aiming for the grassroots with Ellie is not possible as I am not eligible. We will certainly be looking to move back up to BE100s and hope for some good placings as the season progresses.

Fliss is unlikely to event much this season while we establish her dressage and jumping. Things have been frustrating at the moment as we have been unable to get her out to her first jumping show with weather, snow and other cancellations. We do have an exciting clinic coming up though with a lesson with Christop Hess at Hartpury as part of the BHS convention. Very excited for this and we are planning to take both horses and stay in the area for a week finishing with Ellie’s run at Goring. Hopefully we can fit in some additional training and competition while we are away.

You can follow progress on my blog at www.shoestringeventing.co.uk