I am buzzzzzinggg, like buzzing! So I’ve heard event riders talk about that ‘post cross country buzz’ and i’ve always thought the fear of hurting myself or my horse would always over take me feeling elated at the end, well I was wrong and I hold my hands up to it.
On Saturday morning I turned into ‘all the gear, no idea Leah’ and headed out onto the cross country course at my yard. Previous to this I have made one other attempt at ‘XC schooling’ and that compiled of jumping two logs and one little house and a lot of galloping wildly out of control around the field, this time I was determined to have control and mostly have fun, both of us needed it.

If lockdown has done anything for me it’s improved the relationship between Cols and I, not that it was bad before but it’s taken a while for us to completely click. Pre lockdown life he would have been done one end of the day by the yard staff and most weekends I would flit off and spend my time away from him, he didn’t really know how to show any affection coming out of racing and my constant pestering has finally paid off, we get on like two drunk girls in a club toilet, actual best of friends.

When we first got out into the field I have to be honest I almost chickened out, his brain was being blown, there were other horses out on the field and the tractor mowing the grass. Cols put on his best moves and cantered in a crab like fashion around the field, I had to sit tight and settle him, I almost threw the towel in and took him back to bed and out came the big girl pants. We started jumping.
Now I’ll let you into a little secret, if you want a horse to jump for you, you need to put your leg on, not just sit there like a wet fish. I know, I know this will be life changing to you all. We came into the first fence and I just sat there like a lemon, I sort of hoped he would just go, he didn’t, if I wasn’t going he wouldn’t go either which is totally fair. I presented again and PING he flew it. I kept the height small and gave him plenty of time to look at everything and take it all in.

He took everything on board so easily, he landed after every fence and floated across the ground, there were some braking issues but the power in the canter after a fence was unreal, I definitely got that ‘sat on a racehorse’ feeling. We are unbelievably lucky to have the facilities we have at Bucklebury Equestrian to use at our peril, so after a few pops over each fence we called it a day, it isn’t going anywhere and we have entered a clinic in a few weeks time, EVENTERS WATCH OUT. Then it came, the post cross country buzz, I was beaming, so thrilled with him and then I cried, cried the happiest of tears. He’s just amazing, I honestly don’t know how I got so lucky with my unseen, fluffy, skinny little purchase 6 months ago.
Last week had been particularly tough on me and that’s a whole other story, horses have this amazing ability to make everything better.
Enjoy some pictures of us living our best lives, Love always Leah and Cols x