Super proud of Techy and my fantastic crew today! We rode two tests at the Tauranga Dressage show for the first time, and despite being absolutely shattered afterwards, it was totally worth it to win both classes with 71% scores yahooo!!! Such a good cow pony!

Becky did an awesome job on the warm up and Tech felt free, forward and attentive which really helped as I was riding for longer than usual so didn't have the energy in reserve to work harder than usual haha!

Huge thanks as always to my amazing team for looking after both me and my cow pony like princesses :) love you guys! xxx

Without any time for a breather after Equidays, we were back to washing, packing, loading Tech up and heading to Taupo for North Island Champs on Friday! 

Day one was our Championship test, and I was running with a bit of a shortage on crew this show, which meant the fabulous Chelsea and Taya were tag-teaming getting Tech washed, plaited and tacked up, and also helping me get me ready to go too - no mean feat in itself!! 

I didn't have chance to check out where our warm up and arena was before we were ready to go, and once Jody was on board and heading to the warm up, we all realised how far away it was from the mounting block - eek! So while Jody was warming Tech up, Chelsea and I were running (well I was full-speed wheelchairing!) around trying to find a mounting block to take over to the warm up area. My amazing mounting block from GFab was at home in my garage because we're working on the bracket for my float to transport it, so I was a bit stuck! Thankfully, Aimee let me borrow her metal step, so with 10 minutes to go before my test time, Chelsea was pushing a wheelbarrow across the grounds full up with Aimee's step and my steps from the float, and I was following as fast as I could behind hoping it would be high enough to get me up onto Tech! Not the best preparation for our first test oops!

We were lucky enough to be part of the Para Equestrian demonstrations on all three days of Equidays, under the guidance of the brilliant Julie Malcolm and Jody Hartstone, my amazing coaching team!

We were staying in "luxury" this time, with Chelsea towing our caravan over while I towed Tech! We arrived on Thursday lunchtime, set up camp Thorne and the Becky had a ride on Tech. He was rather excited by all the goings-on and Becky had to work hard to get his focus and get him working nicely! Then it was bathtime for Techy and Bex and Chelsea worked hard to get him gleaming white with the not-so-great hoses that stopped running if you held them up too high hehe!

We were scheduled to take part in all three demos, so after a spot of shopping and catching up with some of my amazing sponsors who had stands at the show on Friday morning, it was time to tack up and Bex jumped on for a quick warm up before we headed down to the demo arena.

We had a clicker training lesson a few weeks ago and I wanted to try something new - getting Tech to lift his feet up for me from my wheelchair. I'd never done this before, but the girls have been consistently tapping his leg before lifting his foot up over the last little while, so all I had to do was mark the good behaviour (aka the lift) when I tapped his leg, and Mum who was stood at his head gave him his Big Red's Cookie reward!

Have a look at the video below - this was our 2nd, 3rd ad 4th attempts and I think we did pretty well! Now to work on him holding it up on his own and then working out how I can get my arms down there to pick them out! Baby steps... ;)

So proud of my cow pony today!

It was our first time competing out in the 'scary grass' at the Tauranga Dressage Show so I was very apprehensive (after Tech's Mr Rocket Ship antics out there last year with Lucy!), but we gave him a shot of Top Stock calmer before we left home and he's never been so relaxed! So much so he fell asleep when Lani took a break during her warm up because he felt ready for me and we didn't want to overdo it haha!

We won our class with a 69% so super pleased with Techy and huge thanks to my fab crew for all their hard work for us today. You guys rock!! <3 bring on the season yay!!

That's what we had for our first show back after my month overseas!

Bex, Taya and I loaded Tech up on the Friday afternoon and off to Taupo we went, with Lucy meeting us down there. Saturday was pretty disgusting weather to be honest - heavy downpours and a biting wind but the show must go on, so Tech was tacked up, Taya jumped on and rode a good warm up, then it was my turn!

Well, we showed the judge how we can travers, shoulder in down the centerline and turn on the forehand to put our bums into the wind and rain as a big downpour and burst of wind hit us during the second half of our test! I was coming around the last corner before heading up the diagonal towards our final centreline, and a huge gust of wind hit us in the side and Tech stopped and swung hi bum round and walked backwards into the arena poles! But thankfully he kept his head and stood still while I managed to compose myself, get his attention back and head up the diagonal towards our final halt!

The Thorne Family had an exciting July planned - a very big trip to England to visit family! So off we headed to Auckland to board the plane bound for London. I was excited to catch up with family and friends we hadn't seen for 12 years, but also sad that I would be missing out on a month of Techy time! But I left him in fantastic hands with my amazing crew, and knew he would be looked after like a king. I also had a very exciting horsey date while I was in England - a trip to Hartpury Dressage Festival with all the big guns of the dressage world in action!! Yay!

May and June were busy having lessons with Jody and Julie, working on everything we learned through the season and starting to think about what we want to do next season. Jody gave Tech a fab tune up and was really pleased with how his lateral work is progressing. I hopped on and had a great ride, and worked through our shoulder in, leg yield, travers and pirouettes! I never dreamed I would be able to say I'd covered all of those movements in a lesson... so so exciting! I'm so proud of Techy for picking it all up, and so appreciate all the hard work Jody has put in to train and refine the aids and Tech's response to get them to a point where I can apply them easily! It feels so awesome!!

Next up was a lesson with Julie to work on my position. Each lesson with Julie feels like another huge step forward in my stability and "usefulness" in the saddle. Julie has a great eye to pick out each element of my riding and position that needs work, and has an amazing ability to pinpoint exactly where my weakness is and how we can work to fix it bearing in mind my muscle weaknesses.

After our show season officially ended with the Rotorua Champs show, we put on a different hat and played demo rider and RDA pony at the Halberg Junior Disability Games at St Peter's, Cambridge.

Para Equestrian was asked to look after the horseriding side of the games, so 4 of us current para riders loaded up our competition horses and headed to Cambridge. None of us were 100% sure how our horses would cope with many different riders on them all afternoon, being led through "obstacle course races" with the kids on board, but we put our faith in them and they didn't let us down!

We also had awesome support from Cambridge RDA who brought over two of their ponies to help, and we had an army of volunteers turn up to help mount the riders, lead the horses and sidewalk to make sure they were all safe. What an amazing community we have around us!

April rolled around and with it came the April showers - correction - downpours!

Rotorua Dressage Championship Show is our usual end of season competition, and one that we look forward to as it's only a short trip from home, and the group is such a friendly, relaxed one that we've made lots of friends at over the years so we're always keen for catch ups!

We arrived on Friday after work as usual, and managed to get Tech all settled and the tent up just before dark and before it started raining. Result! We had dinner and lots of the usual laughs and "witching hour fun" before bed, and hoped that the rain would let up in the morning for our first test at 10.30am...