WINTER TIME

Wow. Its been a seemingly very quick winter. I can't believe its now 2012 and we're making entries already for the season ahead.

To back track slightly I had a nearly brilliant but REALLY DISAPPOINTING Pau 4*. Sprout and Luke made the long journey happily enough. The both performed reasonable but not exceptional tests for 62 and 55 respectively. Whilst I was hoping for 5 marks lower on each, they didn't let me down themselves. The cross country was similar to last year...HUGE and technical! Sprout's 4* debut as just a 9yr old was 90% foot perfect. Unfortunately we made a slight error at the second water resulting in a 20pens at a very skinny house on a bending line, where he eyed up one of the spectators umbrellas as a fence instead of the little house, then disaster struck 3 from home at the last water where his exuberant jump into a double meant he caught a knee on the final element decanting me onto French soil....GRRRRR how massively disappointing. The little horse coped with all the technical questions quite brilliantly, and gave me a fabulous ride everywhere else. I felt sad to have let him down as both errors could have been correctable with slightly different approaches. Still he finished fit and well and excited about next year. He really is an incredible horse with every chance of a starry future. Luke's luck was also out, he benefited from my earlier ride on Sprout jumping a fabulous clear around the XC, only to incurr a puncture wound that would prevent him from competing in the show jumping and having to withdraw from the event. GRRRRRR again!

So after a month in the field for all the horses and a little away break to Norfolk and Ireland for me, the team and I have slowly brought the horses all back into work. We have sold RiverMill, The Comissioner and Ghareeb's Diamond to new homes where we wish them all the best, and welcome The Harry's Master from Ireland for India Wishart to compete. Dressage has been my major mission this winter, having improved well in the show jumping last year, I specifically want to score better in the first phase this year. As well as help at home from Gill Watson, i've been trekking up to Nottingham fortnightly to work with Andrew Fletcher.

Being part of the NZ High Performance squad with 2012 in mind has given me wonderful access to extra coaching to compliment Gill's, both on the flat with Andrew and over fences with Luis Alvarez. WE shall see the results of this winter of jolly hard graft, I hope in evidence at my competitions this year. We are starting the year in earnest at Ballindenisk CCI3* on Luke in late February in order to secure his Badminton spot. Sprout has been given the great honour of joining Caroline Powell and Andrew Nicholson on the NZ team in Kentucky at the Rolex CCI4* this spring.

So already I feel as though we're nearly through winter and into the 2012 season at last. I hope the weather doesn't let us down, having been so kind...and can't wait to see you all out there and 'at 'em' this season. Fingers crossed and good luck that we have a happy and successful year and that all our dreams come true!!