A lot has happened recently but it doesn’t all feel like progress! I had a lesson on another grand prix schoolmaster, this time with New Zealand rider Lisa White on the lovely 21 year old Carlos, who is a great mover and still very supple and responsive. Carlos braved extreme heat and horseflies to teach me a thing or two about transitions...
There is so much to dressage and it feels so different on every horse! Just when you think you’ve grasped something, there is another level of subtlety to grapple with. Lisa helped me with the idea of moving the back end up to the hand while going into the halt, achieving total stillness in the halt and reliably moving back up into an active trot without a millimetre of resistance. Precision engineering, or what! I will certainly go back for another lesson but Carlos is not a competition prospect for me. So regards ‘my FEI project’, I have done some serious lateral thinking and am hatching another plan which I might be in a position to tell you about in my next blog.
On the personal horse front, after Norris’ come-back event at Great Tew, we scratched Milton Keynes as it was just too far to travel in serious heat on my own and too much of a risk with the ground. 
Norris then managed to get cast in his stable not once but twice in close succession, each time putting his pelvis out significantly (uncharacteristic as his pelvis is usually very stable). As a result, he had the chiropractor out three times in as many weeks plus a soft tissue treatment.
After the requisite quiet days following the second and third treatments, I booked another jumping lesson with 4* eventer Julie Tew. The first was at her yard and we had planned to film it. But having arrived with Norris and set up the equipment, we called it a day after a few minutes as he just wasn’t looking right. The same happened a couple of weeks later when Julie came to my yard. How embarassing! He had felt good the day before but just wasn’t right again. I was totally gutted and this also meant the cancellation of another couple of events. He still isn’t right as I write even though his pelvis is now straight. So I’m on a mission to get to the bottom of it. The hard ground during turnout may be a part of the equation, secondary damage to muscles or connective tissue after doing his pelvis could also be at play. Why or why can’t horses talk to us in a language we understand?! And there are two other complications too...
First Norris' energy has been on the floor recently. A blood test revealed nothing. A worm count was also clear. The heat may be partly responsible but more significantly and having done a lot of thinking about it, the fact the grass has gone, his work has increased to bring him to eventing fitness plus he moved him from haylage to hay a few months ago when there was still lots of grass and he was looking porky, I think has resulted in insufficient energy in his food for his increased work. I am kicking myself for not spotting it sooner and feeling very guilty, as I have been on his case a bit! So his diet has been changed and I’m pleased to report, that a week later, his energy is returning.
Finally the saga of the saddle! As you know, I have been riding in my jumping saddle for months now as Norris’ dressage saddle ceased to fit him as his shape changed. I bought and returned one saddle, then ordered another. After extensive measuring, taking pictures and promises of perfection, the second saddle arrived and it didn’t fit, so it went back. It arrived again and once more it didn’t fit. It went back again. Meantime, Norris is new leaner physique means his jumping saddle isn’t perfect either and needs adjustment. After an unacceptable wait, the saddle company finally told me that they don’t wish to make any further adjustments as it may spoil the balance! All well and good while you can’t get a finger into the gullet it's so low. Instead, they recommended I use felt pads....on a brand new £3K saddle, I don’t think so! So I’ve been refunded yet again and am no closer to finding a solution! Grrrrhhhhh!!!******
Meanwhile, the season is passing me by again, so I have enlisted my best friend and horse healer Sue who is tuning into Norris as I write (well maybe not quite now as it’s nearly 2 am), to do a long distance analysis which will hopefully pull together all the pieces of this very complicated equation called 'horse' and come up with a way forwards.
And what of Horse Hero? Clare and I have finally finished all the editing that we had stacked up over the last few months and got out to film Part 2 of making Mike Eilberg’s Kur. The second part had been a long time coming as poor Monty fell on the horse walker, hitting his back on the barrier as he tried to get up and cutting his foot. So we had to wait for him to heal and as we were on the point of filming with another horse, Monty came right. Hurray! It was a pleasure to watch Mike work Monty with the help of his father and trainer Ferdi, who was just back from a hospital appointment after a horrid accident where he was kicked in the face by a youngster. He had a really lucky escape but with stitches in his face nothing was going to make him smile for the camera! Mike, who is a real class act in the making, has been holding the fort for Maria while her broken bones repair in time for Aachen and working and competing everything in sight! It seems that horses and people have all been in the walls. There must be something in the air - either that or it's a great conspiracy!
Tomorrow is Express Eventing at the Festival of the Horse, and we were meant to filming there. It was always going to be a logistical nightmare to grab interviews with 5 or 6 riders throughout the competition, and run back and fore to the arena to film enough of the action to make it all hang together. To have any chance of a successful day, it was essential I had the riders’ start times in advance to work out the logistics and speak to everyone to arrange when and where we would be filming them. Sadly, after much nagging the organisers, I still didn’t have the information I needed with less than 24 hours to go, so I have regretfully decided to abandon this outing. A great shame, but we’ll catch up with the riders soon, as most are featured on Horse Hero.
On mundane but surprisingly stressful matters, we have changed accountants and web servers in the last week. The latter took the prize for most stress, followed a close second by the accountants, as the firm we left were not exactly favourites of mine!
After an unbelievable nightmare dealing with the server company we made the change-over yesterday (we also moved 400 plus videos from downloading to streaming while we were at it, so you can now move around any video as you view). The site was down for a few hours while we tested frantically to make sure everything was working and fixed an array of problems along the way. I can tell you, I breathed a sigh of relief when it came back up again!
Meantime, as you know, I sold my house last month and am renting until I move in the Autumn. Once again (after a very long gap) I will then be able to have horses at home and I really can't wait to tuck my boy in at night. My house is being built from scratch so the first few times I visited the site there was just a space where the house will be. But last time the structure was up and I was able to climb up the scaffolding and stand on each floor amidst the elements and admire the view. It was so exciting to work out the room sizes, the fittings and fixtures and built it exactly to suit! The ground work for the equestrian facilities has started too, so the whole project is now moving from fantasy to reality. Progress, after all!