Rob Waine Dressage -

Since my last blog it seems to have been the first quiet few weeks in a longggg time!!! I finally feel like I have caught up with myself.

After our adventures at the Winter Championships and whilst Rhodesia had a well-earned break in the field, I snuck off to the seaside for my sister’s 21st birthday!!! (I feel old writing that!!) My parents had rented a cottage by the sea, so all the family could be in one place at one time. It was lovely to get away, catch up and do absolutely nothing, just eat, drink and take long walks on the beach…well..that was if you didn’t get blown away! It was a little windy but the sun shone….

3 days went by in a blink of an eyelid! It was no rest for the wicked and straight back to work for me.

Through my sponsor, Anna Flynn from Protexin Equine Premium I had been asked to give her a lesson for some local magazine coverage. Anna had just acquired a new horse (Penny) and wanted to aim her for the Badminton Grass Roots Championships. Penny had been ridden in quite strong bits to slow her down rather then the rider using transitions to re balance her, this resulted in a horse that just dropped behind the bridle and charged around at 150mph. We worked on improving Penny’s way of going to help improve her overall dressage marks. It seemed to have all helped as she is out doing really well. Keep looking out for the article over the next few months…..

May was time for the Royal Windsor Horse Show. Its always a fab day out in the Queen’s back garden. A client was due to compete in one of the showing classes but unfortunately her horse just wasn’t quite sound for the big day so missed out. Not one to miss out I armed myself with my umbrella, as in true British summertime weather it was bucketing it down with rain!! Luckily for me I didn’t have to be out in it for long as another client over from America invited me for lunch in the members enclosure…Very spoilt ☺

The sun did shine for the South Bucks Riding Club Open Show though! I had been asked to judge a couple of their classes. Their shows are always so well organized and held on the great facilities of Hammer & Harp, Beaconsfield. By 9am my writer and I had been offered tea, coffee, red & white wine and beer!!! Any more requests for judging from those guys will get a big fat yes from me!

Church bells rang out a couple of weeks ago. I was invited to the evening reception of local dressage rider Linsay Coleridge Smith (or White as she is know known). It was a fab evening and great to catch up with so many familiar faces. Linsay and I were both riders for Olympian Nicola McGivern many years ago….I wish her all the luck and happiness in her new marriage to James ☺