In The Saddle: First pony, first show and first place

The six week school holidays has flown by, with not a minute wasted and all our time spent on the horses.

Okay, let’s correct that - Alyssia has spent all my time playing with her pony and occasionally during this time I’ve managed to sneak a quick ride on my own horse.

It’s all been good fun though and it’s kept us both from being bored too.

We’ve enjoyed some special mother and daughter time together sharing the same hobby and horsey day-to-day tasks. I’ve loved the company and we’ve both loved being outdoors.

My six year old little girl has been enjoying her riding lessons and is coming on.

We’ve filled the school holidays with riding lessons for her, hacking out on our horses with daddy doing the lead rein for her (trust me he is not impressed when we pop into trot and he has to run round the village) and playing at home in the paddocks riding over trotting poles.

We even had a visit from her old owners where the girl who used to own Jazz, Chelsea, showed us how she used to canter Jazz with no hands. It was lovely for them to see her settled with us and it was great for us to see Jazz do faster riding, something my daughter is not yet doing.

Finally we ended the holidays by taking Alyssia to her first show. We popped along to the Epworth Agricultural and Country Show on August bank holiday and had a fantastic day despite the rain. We competed in the showing ring and picked up a first rosette in her first class and a third in her second class.

Alyssia was thrilled with her trophy, medals and rosettes. I was so proud of them both too. There is only me that could nearly cry with pride too! I nearly started the judge off. I’m such a nerd, but a very,very happy one at that.