For once, we’ve had a quiet month. But that hasn’t meant we’ve been able to sit back and relax!

Following a great showjumping lesson at the end of January, working on what we do after the fence, we started putting this into practice right away at home.

Using just two fences on the diagonals creates a quick and simple to set up exercise to help you work on ride away from the fence in balance and in an organised way to make the most of your corners, setting you up in the best way possible for your next fence!

Unusually early in the month, but falling on a Saturday for a change, we enjoyed a great flatwork Training session with Cathy Burrell. During this we worked on stepping up our expectations - so increased leg yielding on our straights and circles, making our circles smaller, using my torso in a better way to assist the turn. It was a very positive session, but unfortunately I lost my cameraman fairly early in the session while he helped a friend out with a broken down horsebox on the A1!!!

We left with some juicy homework to work on before our next session in the middle of March

With a couple of other priorities in life, the following weekend left me with what I thought only a short time to hack out late afternoon... How wrong I was!! Delighted by the lighter nights, I was able to enjoy a much longer hack around the local countryside before arriving home just as dusk drew in!

Unfortunately, disaster stuck our team, when we really did lose one of our team - Andrew!

Struck with a very bad strain of flu, Andrew suffered a black out which unluckily was while he was in the bathroom. Sadly, his face took the full blow to his fall, and he ended up being taken to A&E by blue light ambulance.

Andrew had broken his nose in three places, slit his lip and was suffering a bad concussion, unable to recall information such as his DOB, what year or month it was, or even his own age!

It happened on Valentine’s Day...seems a rather dramatic way to get out of a card and bunch of flowers!!

On a serious note, Andrew has been very ill, still today suffer with slow recall and vacancy, as well as a tough cough that’s proving difficult to shift.

So when I said February had been quiet but not not busy...I’ve been busy learning all sort of new skills. Cooking, cleaning, dog walking, washing, shopping - you name it, I’ve learnt it this month!!

It did mean that we missed a British Dressage competition that we had planned mid-month, as well as some showjumping Academy Training, but fingers crossed we’ll be able to be back out and about next month.

On the last Sunday in month, and due to missing Academy training, we booked a private showjumping lesson with Philippa. It felt great after a few hard weeks to be away from home and having a jump! The session was fairly technical, riding rollback lines to & away from the fence, as well as incorporating a 90 degree dog leg turn.

The latter I was slightly concerned about as at the point of 90 degrees was a fence right in front of us... but a quick chat with Philippa about what I was thinking and re-iterating what & how I should ride the turn, meant we did a great job!

With a bit of a bigger jump in, but a quick reaction from me, we made our turn, got the flying change & kept our organisation throughout! It felt great to skip around the arena for 45 minutes with a big smile on my face...a real break away freedom!!