Horse of the Year has arrived! The float and ute were packed to the brim, and Bex and I headed to the paddock to pick up Ira. As we drove down the hill I could see a horse tied up at the yards with a fancy rug on... I had to do a double take before I realised it was Ira in a brand new rug with his name on it! My awesome friends had got together and organised a gorgeous fleece rug from Canter for Cancer (Thanks so much Nicki!), personalised with the Para NZ logo and both mine and Ira's names on the side! How lucky are we to have such lovely friends!!

After lots of hugs and a few photos, we loaded Ira onto the float, and Bex piloted us down to Hastings like a star. Ira had a walk out when we got there which he found very exciting - with lots of leaps and bounds on the end of the lead rope, little monkey! Then Bex set up our camp, and we were ready for a fun week ahead. Bring it on!

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Waikato Championships Show was mine and Ira's second show together, and I was looking forward to it!

We set off for Taupo on Thursday lunchtime so we could set up camp and give Ira a good look around before arena familiarisation on Friday morning. Ira had snuggles with his big brother Dougal before a look around the indoor with Jody where we were due to ride our freestyle on Sunday - exciting!!

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I'd never been to Equitana, and was always planning to go this year, and then Ira and I were invited to be demo riders for the Para-Dressage showcase during the Friday night show! WOW!! I couldn't believe it... what an honour to be asked to ride at such a prestigious event! Of course I said yes... but the nerves were already kicking in...

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Ira and I had a fantastic first show together at the Total Industrial Solutions / Ewen Cameron Drilling Ltd Bay of Plenty Premier League Championship Show. I couldn't have asked any more of this gorgeous boy, and I'm so proud of Ira and my whole team for getting us through it all so well!

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Once I'd made the decision to sell Tech, we started my new unicorn hunt. At no stage did I ever think this was going to be easy... We were looking for a horse that ticked all of my "essential" boxes: Sensible, Good walk, Easy to handle on the ground, 16-16.2hh, Wide build, Dressage training/experience, Located in the North Island, Within my (relatively small!) budget, and the owner willing to let me have the horse on trial at my property.

Over the course of the next 12 months I had a few different horses on trial who weren't quite right, had amazing friends lend me their horses so I could keep riding and keep my fitness/strength up while horse-less, and bought a mare that unfortunately didn't work out so had to sell her.

At this point I thought I was never going to find a horse, and was seriously second-guessing my decision to sell Tech. But then in early May Rosie responded to ANOTHER "unicorn-hunt" post that Jody put out on Facebook, and offered us to try her gelding... all 16.3hh of him!!

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This is a post I never thought I would be writing... In May 2018 after an up and down competition season, Tech was giving me very subtle signs that he was over life as my para dressage horse. I kept this feeling to myself for a while but slowly started getting the girls to do more fun stuff with him - more hacking, some cowboy challenge stuff and some jumping (including some pony club rounds). He was in his element! As upsetting as it was, in my heart I knew that I needed to let him go and have some fun, free of the responsibility of looking after me on his back - a job which he'd done so amazingly for over 7 years. I just don't have the funds or the time to have two horses in work, and Tech certainly wasn't ready for retirement so I reluctantly put him up for sale in search of the PERFECT home...
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2017 was an unlucky one for me, with the first of five falls over the next 12 months (off my own feet - not off a horse!) that resulted in what I now know as major concussions. As a typical stoic horserider, each time I fell over I didn't think much of it, despite my poor face taking the brunt of the fall because my arms are too weak to stop me going down. I amassed a fair few facial bumps and bruises, with the worst being in May 2017 when I fell over on my front doorstep and broke my nose and tore my calf after crashing down on the concrete!

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Ok I hold my hands up - I've been a little bit (ok, very!) slack at updating my site over the last 18 months but I'm rectifying that now! I have lots of changes and news to share so watch this space!

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Hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year Break! Team Tech managed to squeeze in a few lessons with Jody and Julie so our training was ticking along nicely and we were gearing up well for our first ever visit to Auckland Manukau Dressage Group in a few weeks time. I've always wanted to get up to Clevedon for the annual Dressage Festival and this year I was lucky enough to be able to pull a crew together to make it happen. So on Thursday we loaded up and set off for Auckland for the Shirley Watts Memorial Cushionride Dressage Festival.

The weather forecast wasn't looking particularly great with string winds predicted, but we didn't let that deter us, and we were soon parked up at Clevedon Showgrounds with Tech settled in his pen, and the tent ready to go up. Unfortunately that wasn't such an easy mission due to the aforementioned wind... even with 4 pairs of hands (ok my pair of hands aren't 100% helpful but hey!) the crazy wind managed to rip out one of the pegs and peeled back the flysheet that Mum and Chelsea were frantically trying to get pegged down! Poor Chels took the full force of the peg to the forehead and now has a dent in her head to remind her of that wonderful experience - sorry Chels!! She refused the Mickey Mouse plaster I offered her though... hehe!! ;)

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