The year seems to be flying by already, it’s hard to believe we are heading into April already - hopefully that means Spring is on its way?!

The 2024 season preparations were going brilliantly, and I had been able to get out training at some fantastic venues with some world class trainers. All the horses felt like they have really strengthened up and improved from their winter breaks and conditioning work which is really exciting for the season. Unfortunately I had a slight disagreement with gravity and ended up smashing my collarbone quite spectacularly at the beginning of February which put rather a pause on everything.

I won’t go into all the gory details but an open fracture meant I had some swift surgery to clean it all up and plate my collarbone back together, allowing the healing and rehab to begin.

I’m very lucky that my fiancé Yaz, who also events, was able to take over the reins on all of my horses. Alongside her own string and some of our liveries she was left with nearly 20 horses to manage and ride, as well as me to look after - probably not what she had in mind but she took it on without a thought and did a fantastic job over the 6 weeks I was off games. Unfortunately for her, the weather meant that after all that work the events she was supposed to take my horses to were abandoned due to waterlogged conditions, so instead they have been handed back over to me finely tuned and ready to go.

It was looking like again we were going to miss most of the March eventing with cancellations but thankfully Tweseldown stepped up to run their second horse trials of the season after the cancellation of Cirencester and we were all so grateful for the run. I felt a little out of practice having not long been given the all clear to get going from my collarbone but nonetheless we had a fairly successful weekend including some top 10 finishes.

Global Lovestory and Charlie Foxtrot at Tweseldown

We are very much praying that the weather stays looking more Spring like and the upcoming events are able to go ahead as we have lots of exciting aims for the season. Badminton is not on the cards this year sadly as my top horse Dynasty is recovering from a minor injury he sustained at the end of last year but instead we will be aiming for some of the other big B’s including Bramham and Blenheim.

With such a wet start to the year, the team and the horses have been extremely grateful to have had an endless supply of Burlybed Original to keep them happy. Hopefully we can get away to some stay away shows soon and use our favourite Burlybale too!