Blog Hop: Playing Favourites

This was a great rainy & stormy day diversion for me! Although it's a beautiful November Sunday here in Wiltshire today, we've had relentless rain and gusts of wind for the last 24 hours and I felt like I was starting to go crazy, so a big thank you Raincoast Rider for such fabulous questions.

1. Favorite show venue:

The best ones that I've actually been to is both the Royal Windsor Horse Show as well as London Olympia Horse Show. I've just booked our tickets to go to Olympia this year, we're off on Monday 16th to see the Grand Prix dressage class and I'm SO excited 🎉 My favourite to watch or livestream is always Badminton Horse Trials, although next year I am determined to actually go there since I only live about 45 minutes away.

2. Favorite discipline:

It's not going to surprise anyone that my favourite discipline is dressage. I like the training, the dedication and the complete focus required. That being said, whenever I get stuck or bored I go out for a long hack or do some pole work and suddenly everything goes better again!

3. Favorite horse colour:

Bay, but grey has an incredibly special place in my heart 🦄💕

4. Favorite tack store:

Feather Dressage and Foster Equestrian are my favourite tack shops - amazing products, they're always happy to hold items for you, it's never any bother if you'd like order in any special items that aren't in stock and they have SO many different brands in stock. My favourite local shop is Equiboodle, which is less than 10 minutes down the road from me!

Christmas gift guide 2019

So now that it’s November we can officially start to talk about Christmas!! 🎄 So I've put together a list of gift ideas, from companies that I love. Hopefully this will help with presents - we've still got several weeks left AND with Black Friday coming it's the perfect time to get shopping! There's everything here from affordable stocking fillers to big gifts for your significant other/parent/sibling/best friend/yard buddy/yourself 🎁

1. EquiXtreme UK Show Kit (£15)

I've seen this fantastic EquiXtreme UK show kit mentioned a lot over the last year on social media so I thought I ought to also include it! This little pack is perfect for keeping with your competition gear the trailer or your tack room, as it has everything you could possibly need. It has little containers of their tack cleaner & conditioner, fly spray, hair polish, mane & tail detangler and their coat whitener to remove those last minute stains.

2. Bespoke & Personal brushes (starting from £18)
I won a collection of different Bespoke & Personal products from an Instagram competition and I absolutely adore my brushes, especially the goat hair body brush which is a great addition to a grooming kit for anyone AND no more losing brushes as you can have their name engraved on it! The dandy brush, mane comb and hoof pick are also some of my favourites pieces in my grooming kit.

3. Kingsland Walters set of socks (£22)

Socks are always a trusty present to give at Christmas! These Kingsland ones come as a pack of 3 pairs of socks that have a super thin feel with a thicker footbed, and I guarantee they will be a success! 👣My oldest pair are over 5 years old and they still feel incredible under my boots.

10 tips for getting ready for winter

1. Get a head torch. You don't have to use the light on your phone and risk losing your phone in a puddle or worry about the battery running out AND you'll have both hands free for whatever tasks you need to do! 🔦

2. Always wear a hat — you lose most of your body heat through your head. Or if you're not the biggest fan of hats, then wear a wooly headband so that at least you feel a little bit warmer and your ears don't freeze.

3. Buy thermal liners for your wellies and fingerless gloves so you can still do fiddly jobs. Always wear a t-shirt or a vest that you can tuck in to your breeches/leggings/jeans and keep the warmth in. I know several friends who used to suffer from chilblains down their legs, but now they combat this with thermal breeches and waterproof over-trousers whenever its raining. 👖

4. Put hard surfacing or rubber matting around the field gates to prevent sinking into mud - this has made such a big difference already to us and it's only early November! No more muddy pathways to the paddocks where you have to do badly executed gymnastics moves in order to get your welly out of the mud!

5. A radiator for the tack room will prevent tack getting damp and mouldy which means you have to spend less time cleaning tack over the winter. 

Trends to watch out for: Eskadron Heritage 2019 collection

When someone asked if I could only ever have matchy from one single collection ever, which collection would I pick, I straight away answered that it would definitely be Eskadron's Heritage collections. Although the very first collection was not my cup of tea, since then it has always been the highlight of my year! And this year, it's no different - I mean holy moly! A beautiful palette of autumnal colours, I am not joking when I say that I want a set in every colour 🍁🍂

The colours of this collection are: deep taupe, black mocca, oxford navy and rosewood. And yes I did save the best till last, because this rosewood colour is out of this world beautiful. As someone who adores pink, this colour is literally perfection and we haven't seen this shade of pink ever before from any of the matchy brands that I know of. The deep taupe does remind me of Equestrian Stockholm champagne and PS of Sweden's ice coffee, but then with the choice of 6-7 different styles of saddle pads it's something that no other brand offers. I for one am very pleased that Eskadron have decided to stick their game plan of a few colours and lots of different styles of pads, it's what makes them unique and different to all the other brands! When the first leak of this collection came out I saw so many people shouting "boring" but I think they might have all changed their minds when the the proper photos arrived as well as the video (click HERE if you wanna see the video too!)

The supplements for my horses that I'm currently loving

It is a minefield out there with SO many different supplements for every possible ailment and most of us horse owners will have spent what feels like thousands of pounds trying to find those ones that actually work. Which is why I wanted to share the two supplements that have really impressed me over the last few months. Of course what works for my horses might not work for other horses, but I totally believe it is worth sharing information and success stories in the hope that they can help others too!

To start of with, it's the 4CYTE Epiitalis® Forte gel which I've been using for over a month with Vallu. The epiitalis gel is a revolutionary equine joint support supplement - one that you won't find it in any other joint supplement on the planet. The gel has three ingredients: epiitalis (an extract from the seed of biota orientalis), a soya oil gel and apple flavouring 🍏 So no hidden ingredients and no bulking ingredients. By the way, did you know that up to 60% of all equine lameness cases that vets see are due to joint disease? So not only has Vallu suffered from several tendon and ligament injuries, I am well aware of his age and that with time general wear and tear can take its toll on the horse's joints.

 What makes this supplement so special for me? Well, it's made a massive difference to Vallu. It feels like he's five years younger, he's moving his body as if he hasn't been off proper work for the last 6 months and he feels incredible to ride. But most importantly, this supplement has had a significant research into it, which has demonstrated that the active ingredients are effective. Most companies will bring out supplements with barely any research done, but not this one and I for one appreciate a company that is able to show why its product is so good 👏🏻