Sarah Ruffles Rider Diary – February 2024

Since the new year I’ve been trying to step up our Badminton prep but a few things got in the way to begin with. Firstly, I injured my back, which I did by picking up a bucket (definitely getting old!) and this put me out of action for a week. Then we had a week of freezing cold weather which always makes things slightly tricky! I keep my 3 horses on a livery yard and our sand school was frozen solid, but I did manage to get out to an arena hire, as well as going for a jump lesson with my trainer Simon Grieve at Field Farm in Leicestershire where he is based, which has a fabulous indoor arena.

I went out Showjumping a few times in January / February which was somewhat educational! We did our first British Showjumping show at Arena UK, and I had a bit of a disastrous warm up, but then managed to get my act together when we went in the ring and jumped a clear round in the Discovery. I also went to a local unaffiliated SJ competition and jumped the 1m and the 105. Neither were the smoothest rounds we have ever jumped, but great practice for jumping in a competition environment, which is where my nerves will often kick in, so plenty of positives to take away.

We have also made a few trips to the canter track at Field Farm recently, to try and up his fitness ready for eventing. There are also some cross-country fences there, so a good opportunity to get out and jump some solid fences and get our eye back in. We also went cross country schooling on the all-weather xc course at Vale View, which Otis thought was great fun!

As well as all this fun stuff, we have also been doing plenty of flatwork too. Otis finds schooling quite hard and can get a bit sour if I do too much of it, so I try to do no more than 2 days a week of schooling. Recently I have been working on some exercises to try and improve his straightness and suppleness, and we are making progress but is very much a long-term goal. We also like to go hacking at least once a week, which is his favourite thing and is great for his fitness. I work full time Monday – Friday so hacking is a weekend only activity at the moment, due to the lack of daylight hours, but I’m looking forwards to the days drawing out so that I can get back to hacking before and after work. I’ve also had Otis’s saddles checked this month and both needed quite a bit of adjustment since he’s getting a lot stronger and fitter than he used to be, so it was important to get that done.

Last weekend we headed to Combined training for some more competition practice at Vale View, which is local to us. We managed a reasonably good test and jumped a nice round in the 1m, just having a pole down but most importantly we both came away feeling confident with a smile on our faces, which was my main aim. We are now feeling ready for our first event of the season which will be Oasby if all goes to plan, and the weather plays ball!

Sarah