Happy Christmas and A Happy New Year!!
As the year draws to a close. I am looking forward to seeing the back of 2020!!
This year although being very strange. Bear posted his best National scores at the one and only National Championships and then went onto getting personal best placings at the International; with the Tokyo judges giving us the highest scores. Sky posted well over 70% and in the last outing he got the exclusive 75%! I thought it would be the year that my Paralympic dream would come true but sadly it wasn’t meant to be! Maybe it will happen next year?!
On that note I have had confirmation that both horses have qualified for the Gold Para Dressage Championships next year, so that’s something to look forward too!
My first year on the World Class Podium Potential Programme. The expertise has been great and I have enjoyed the opportunity and learnt lots. The support of the English institute of sport; has been huge and attending Bisham for Strength and Conditioning and Physiotherapy weekly has been an enormous help.
Sky is going better than ever and shows again and again that age is just a number! Bear has come on leaps and bounds since Keysoe and I am very excited about getting him between the white boards next year.
A lot of you will know that sadly my condition deteriorated massively this year, and this has meant that I have had to find ways to help make me more stable in the saddle. We have found something that seems to work so fingers crossed we can try it out in competition next year.
This year has taught us a lot and it has given me some time to really spend concentrating on myself and my horses. Which will have made a big difference to me and my horses. I also had the opportunity to work on my public speaking and decided with the help of Sean to completely revamp my speech and PowerPoint. It took a long time, but it was completely worth it.
My public speaking commitments have been limited this year due to Covid. But I was invited to do one by zoom recently to Amersham Rotary Club which I really enjoyed and had some wonderful feedback. This was the first time doing my new speech and presentation as well and my first ever speaking commitment on zoom.
But also giving me a chance to take on some more mentees I ran a competition during the first lock down and was delighted to welcome Donna and Chloe to the team alongside Sophie and Elan. I am delighted to say that Chloe competed in his first ever para competition this year with William and has now qualified for the Bronze Para Dressage Championships next year. Elan has been doing lots of online dressage; her scores are on the rise and she’s been winning lots of red rosettes. Donna has really been focusing on her training with her horse and Sophie has had to shield so hasn’t been able to ride much. I am so proud of all my mentees and all there individual achievements. We have had regular zoom catch ups and I am looking forward to working with these 4 riders next year.
Also during lock down I did monthly live sessions and several V Blogs. I was also honoured to have been asked to speak at the Ataxia UK Virtual Annual conference.
I want to say a massive thank you to everyone that has supported me and my team and continues to do so. I have enjoyed running competitions alongside my super sponsor BETTA Life. Keep your eyes open as there will be another competition coming in January.
Excitingly I now have a new website. Thank you so much to Oliver James Social Media and Glesni for my new Website.
Bring on 2021! Let’s hope things return to some sort of normality very soon!!
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