It's been flat out training and riding for the last few weeks with the Dressage riders preparing for the Regional Championships and the Eventers preparing for Gatcombe and Hartpury and now Burghley and Blenheim. It's all going well though, Merrie and I won our two regional classes championships at Keysoe so she and Pegasus MK, who qualified for the Grand Prix earlier in the year, will both go to the Nationals. A good time was had by all at the Eastern Regionals with a strong comaraderie and party spirit prevailing in the evenings.

Roland (Tong) and I helped each other warm up in between helping about 30 clients between us and he won his class, the Inter 1, too. I was really pleased to see other riders I help gain their tickets (cue more partying!), including Ben Martin who won his two regional classes in the Novice Open and Medium restricted and for Ben St John James, Heather Leighton and Alison Berman who, amongst others, will also all go to the National Championships.

Merrie has been an absolute star recently winning her first advanced class, as well the regionals with high scores and I'm looking forward to starting Prix st Georges now. We attended World Class training with the brilliant Ferdi in the week before the competition and he encouraged me to ride her more forward rather than focusing on control which certainly worked as she gained a rare and precious 10 for her final trot extension at the regional championships! She has been a bit lively, resulting in a few 'interesting' moments. I managed to fall off her fairly spectacularly in a lesson with Conrad Schumacher, so training has been slightly hair raising but competing has been just great, so no complaints, she's just keeping me on my toes.

Merrie will also compete at Wellington in their Advanced Medium Freestyle Championships following the Nationals, it's a show I always love riding at so I'm really looking forward to it. I have received some suggestions from my ever helpful 'friends' regarding my music, Cheryl Cole's 'I Don't Need No Parachute' and 'You Send Me Flying' by Amy Winehouse being top of the list of their suggestions. Thanks for your support guys.

I was chuffed to hear that our mare, Shimmer, is in foal to the gorgeous Showmaker again. I've had a soft spot for him since I got to know him when his owner Gary Williams and I competed at the young horse world championships in Verden in 2008 and we already have a lovely yearling filly called Beryl by him, so I'm looking forward to being 'Nana Anna' again .

Other exciting news is that I am moving yards after the Nationals. After a few very happy years at Bury Farm in Bucks I'm moving to a yard in Banbury in Oxfordshire with Ben Martin and Mandy Curtis. We have found a fabulous yard on a private estate with indoor and outdoor arena's, gallops, turnout, hacking, a huge horse-walker and every possible facility we could need to ride, as well as have people to stay for intensive training and lessons and we'll also all continue to train our existing clients.

We are setting up a new business called 'Altogether Equestrian' which will cover riding, training, equestrian events and media projects. I've been having ideas for a long time regarding new technology to help with training and long distance training to help motivate and improve riders and horses when a trainer isn't physically present, as well as making top level training more accessible to all riders and we're going to start to put those ideas into practice which I'm really looking forward to.

So at the moment I am frantically packing, wondering how it is possible to have accumulated so many rugs and whether we still really need that curb bit with the wonky shank that worked so well on parrot mouthed Nobby in 1982..,,

Sadly, however, with so many commitments I have to step down from from regular blogging with Horse Hero but I will be staying in touch with periodic articles and 'mini blogs' from time to time. Thank you for visiting my blog over the last couple of years, I hope you've had as much fun reading it as I have had writing it!