Feeling The Weight Of The Rein

Feeling The Weight Of The Rein I started this Blog at 14 years old to document my dressage dreams. Now 17 and loving every minute.

11/02/2026

2026…

After the most horrendous end to 2025 I couldn’t wait for 2026 to arrive. New beginnings and all that. I can’t express to you enough how broken my heart is to not have Connie and King with me anymore but I know they are with me everyday and I take comfort in that.
2026 arrived and with that I decided to set up my own business. It’s very early days and I know it’s going to take hard work, time and commitment for it to succeed but I’ll do it. I am now offering schooling services freelance and I have a few horses on my books and I’m excited to see them all progress.
I said in one of my posts that Connie and King will send me my new horse and I truly believe that they have. Late in January me and my dad sent each other the same advert for a horse based in Oxford now this is what we call a Folly moment. What is a Folly moment? Back when it all began in 2015 my mum and dad were searching for the perfect pony for little old me and they both came across an advert on different sites and they sent each other the link to this pony. The links were for the same pony (Folly) and we always say it was meant to be from the start because she truly was and still is the perfect pony.
Anyway back to my new one. Clio is a 17.1 12 year old dark bay some would say black Oldenburg mare. And I am super excited to start training with Tori and getting back out competing.
A little snippet of us from the beginning… lots to work on but the potential is there.

Merry Christmas. It’s been a morning filled with laughter, happiness, tears and sadness what you would call a bitterswee...
25/12/2025

Merry Christmas. It’s been a morning filled with laughter, happiness, tears and sadness what you would call a bittersweet morning. The day started out early because my mum couldn’t sleep. 😴 off we went downstairs to our presents and she had 2 presents labelled open last and second to last. After opening the mountain of smellies (I think she’s trying to tell me something) I came to the 2nd to last present. I opened it immediately started crying when I saw that she’s had a binary star (2 together) named after Connie & King that I will be able to see from my house. And she said to me now they truly are in heaven 🩷💙💔 she even made my dad cry. Then came the last one and it’s a matching necklace that I already have of King and it’s Connies face engraved. Mum you really are so thoughtful I love you so much.

The best horses in heaven have no tail…Monday 15th December my boy King gained his angel wings and crossed rainbow bridg...
21/12/2025

The best horses in heaven have no tail…

Monday 15th December my boy King gained his angel wings and crossed rainbow bridge. This has been the hardest 10 days I’ve ever had to live. Not only have I lost Connie I have now lost King, my boy, my heart horse my soul mate. My heart is shattered not broken it’s shattered into a million pieces.
King was diagnosed with kissing spine the other month and 7 vertebrae were touching and 2 more overlapping. We contemplated letting him live life just being a horse and never being ridden again but he was in pain. The pain and discomfort that he was in was slowly changing his cheeky personality and you could see the struggle he was having so we decided as a family that the kindest thing for him would be for him to be put to sleep. A decision that I have to say is probably the worst one I’ve ever had to make.
As you can imagine losing both Connie and King I no longer have a dressage horse to compete on so for the time being there will be no more dressage for me until, Connie and King send me my next horse.

05/12/2025

Run free my girl….

Yesterday I turned 18. I had the best time celebrating with my friends and family. Spoilt doesn’t even begin to cover it. I got a car, I’m going to Krakow and got lots of lovely gifts.
Yesterday started out so lovely but ended in the most heartbreaking way.
I lost Connie.
She went in for a routine operation which was successful, quick, minimal anaesthetic quite textbook really, but her recovery didn’t go as they hoped. Connie developed a rare condition that affects 1 in 1000 horses. Post operative spinal cord myelopathy which affected her hind limbs and prevented her from being able to get up.
As you can imagine me and my family are heartbroken 💔
Run free my sweet girl until we meet again.

21/09/2025

Sound on if you want to hear how to pronounce my surname 🤣

This is the big leagues darling…..With nationals looming we had lots of prep work to get us looking and riding our best…...
21/09/2025

This is the big leagues darling…..

With nationals looming we had lots of prep work to get us looking and riding our best… We had many lessons with our Coach Tori and lots of practice at home I felt ready. It was such a scary thought going to Nationals. This was our first ever time we had been to such a big competition and I’ll be honest it was a little overwhelming. I felt scared but Tori said one thing to me that helped calm my nerves “the hard part was getting to nationals now you just go and have fun” I can’t tell you how much that helped.

So nationals day arrived we took Connie down the day before and rode in the arena. She felt great, I felt great. We were ready.

Somerford is on another level for venues it’s got everything, if I could stable there I would in a heartbeat… I wonder if I can sweet talk my dad 🤔

Anyway when we got to somerford the set up for nationals is just amazing, amazing food stalls, the shopping village I was like a kid at Christmas. Dad said test first shopping later.

When plaiting and tacking Connie up my mum was making a mental shopping list of all the things we need for when we go out competing especially stay away ones. She’s currently got a trolley, portable saddle rack, a step in her Amazon basket. Oh and she said that’s the last time we ever come out and Connie’s not got a fancy show rug on 🤣 I did try saying the one she had on makes her nice and shiny even if it is covered in poo stains🫣

Entering the warm arena and Tori was there to warm me up things really did start to get real. I just want to say a massive thank you to her for taking the time out and travelling down to work me in. I couldn’t ask for a better coach who not only is a fantastic teacher but the support she’s gave me helped me massively.
We had a great warm up session I just wish you could get marked on warming up because I think I’d do really well..

My name was called and it was so great that the commentator pronounced my whole name right. (Mum helped him with that one) In to the white boards we went.
I’m so happy we managed the whole test and I thought that we did a good job I’m sure the scores will tell me.

Watching the video back you can see that my trot around before the bell rung was strong and full of purpose and as soon as I enter between the boards it’s like my batteries drain everything slows down. I think I hold my breath the whole way round. I’m going to work on fixing that.

Anyway there was one point in my circle where I pat Connie (she thrives off praise) but I used the wrong hand and she ended up falling out of the circle (that will hurt my marks) but my transitions were good. One of the comments just sums up my test
“Beautiful mare who at times ridden a little safe and therefore lacked throughness and jump in the canter work, could be really nice”

But you know what I scored 66.8% came 29th out of 44 for my first ever trip nationals I’m bloody ecstatic. Yes I rode safe but I’ll be honest I think my nerves do that. Next year it will be different I’m determined.

Summer season over and out….

It takes a team to make dreams come true. And we truly have the best team. We have the best coach Tori Peter we have the...
22/08/2025

It takes a team to make dreams come true. And we truly have the best team. We have the best coach Tori Peter we have the best camera woman/groom Jessica Smith aka Lil Ginge but most of all we have the biggest supporter and that right there is my dad. Don’t get me wrong my mum is also my biggest supporter but my dad lives through it all with me. He’s at every lesson and training session. He is so invested in me and Connie we are his life. I am super grateful for all that he (and my mum) do for us. I just wanted to share this picture of me Connie and my dad going in to practice for our test today. Good luck to everyone competing Sheepgate U25s Champs let’s do this!!

21/07/2025

Regionals….Yesterday we attended Kelsall Hill Equestrian Centre for our summer regionals championship. I don’t know if you’ve been to kelsall but what a venue.. It’s awesome and it has absolutely everything you could possibly think of.The day started for us at 4.30am. Wow I’m tired just looking back at it 🤣 we were at the yard for 05.30 to plait up. Loaded and on the road by 06.30 to get to Kelsall with enough time before our test at 08.56.Warming up I’m going to be totally honest I was a bag of nerves you could see the different caliber of riders and horses and it can be quite intimidating however everyone is super nice.Our test time arrived and into the arena we went. Connie had a little spook at the judges boxes but managed to not lose her head. We completed a lovely test and judging by my mums big smile on my way out I figured we did well.When my mum told me my score I did a little happy dance and gave Connie the biggest hug ever. Now it was time to wait until the rest of the prelims had finished so we could see where we had placed.It was the longest 2 hours EVER!! However I’m pleased to report that we came 3rd scored 70.93% and bagged our ticket to nationals!! Whoop whoop….I’m over the moon…Nationals here we come

Here’s our professional pictures from Sunday 😍 which ones your fave?
17/07/2025

Here’s our professional pictures from Sunday 😍 which ones your fave?

15/07/2025

Yesterday was the summer area festivals at Myerscough and it was mine and Connie’s 3rd time competing petplan. As you may remember the 2 times previous didn’t go to plan at all. This time however I was excited because Connie is a completely different horse than she was 6 months ago. The change in Connie is amazing she’s no longer this stressy, over anxious unpredictable mare she’s turned into a beautiful floaty chilled out mare that is loving her job. I never used to be able to hack her out as she would just rear and spin and buck and become dangerous so we just didn’t chance it. Now she’s off cantering over the moors encountered sheep and cows and loves every minute of it.Anyway back to petplan. We did a lot of prep work for this day to make sure Connie and I were well prepared it would be as stress free as possible. We hired Myerscough a couple of days before to have a mock test and see how Connie reacted and she loved it. We had plenty of lessons with the best coach in the world Tori Peter and we knew we had done everything we could it would now be down to how the day went.In the warm up arena Connie bossed it like she does and you could see people admiring how she moved and I’ll admit it made me feel good knowing people were admiring my horse. When it was our time to go in the ring I wasn’t nervous or apprehensive as I had been in the past I was excited. “Come on Connie let’s do this”Into the ring we went and the test just flowed perfectly. Well not perfect but we managed the whole test without any issues or me having to retire like last time. It felt so good. As soon as I came back down that centre line, halt immobility salute my emotions couldn’t be contained. I praised Connie (a little too enthusiastically) almost burst in to happy tears and had the biggest smile upon my face. We did it!!Waiting for the final results was absolute torture… But I’m pleased to share that we scored 68.22% in Novice Bronze landing us in 3rd place 🙌🏻 how amazing is that?

Hello again…I’ll start by saying hello again it’s been that long since I’ve wrote anything for feeling the weight of the...
08/06/2025

Hello again…

I’ll start by saying hello again it’s been that long since I’ve wrote anything for feeling the weight of the rein I bet you all forgot I existed 😂
It’s not all been silent we have been working behind the scenes so to speak mainly getting king ready to go back out competing, ensuring Connie is happy and settled and also turning Elsa’s hoof into a jumping one.
When we moved from Royals to Crow wood we did it with Connie’s and my best interests at heart. I needed mirrors so when my dad (aka my human mirror) went working away I could still see how I looked and if I needed to do more etc. Upon moving to Crow Wood it was clear that Connie just wasn’t settling. She got very upset if I took king out of his stable and generally just turned herself inside out until he came back. She was ok if she went out and left him but not the other way round. So we decided they needed to be separated. Easier said than done when there are no free stables in any other blocks. So we made a conscious decision to move farms.
We moved Connie first. When we took her off the trailer and into her new stable we waited with bated breath for the screaming, pacing and stressing to start… and we waited… It never came. It was like the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders and she was like “yeah ok I think I’ll like it here”
A week later we moved King and I stole Elsa from my mums yard and we were now all settled and stabled at Clough Bottom Farm in haslingden.
Since moving on Connie has changed in personality. Those that know Connie will vouch for me. She never used to hack out (alone or in company) she would literally go vertical or spin but now we go out cantering across the moors, encountering sheep, cows and rabbits and she loves it. I’m so happy.
Now that my horses are happy and settled it’s time to start competing again and doing what we love.
Till next time….
Picture of Connie in her new stable.

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