Some riders "too obese" for their horses? I talk about this on the Peter Levy show

I am sure most of you reading this are by now well aware of the recent story which broke earlier this week about "some" riders being too obese for their horses.

It has sparked a variety of opinions from riders across the country, with some in agreement with the research results and some in disagreement.

Earlier on in the week I wrote a blog about the story, so if you missed it then head on over now to read what I had to say.

As you may know, I am becoming quite a regular on the Peter Levy show on BBC Radio Humberside and when his producer contacted me yesterday morning to see if I would go on the show to discuss this topic I was more than happy to oblige!

To listen to the podcast click this link and the discussion starts at 1hour and 13 minutes in.

It was brilliant to be able to hear from the researcher and her opinions and it is evident the research is still not finished.

I would just like to thank Peter for having me on his show again - I love being able to discuss my opinions, especially with a topic I am so passionate about.

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It has been claimed overweight riders are putting horses at risk - Do you agree?

According to research, our equines are the latest victims of Britain's obesity crisis because their riders are simply "too heavy".

The recent study has found that almost a third of riders were too obese for their equines, leaving them at a greater risk of ailments such as back problems, lameness and bad behaviour.

The study comes after the first saddle designed for the plus sized riders went on sale earlier this year.

Around 150 horses and their riders were assessed from stables in Devon and Cornwall.

According to the research, only one in 20 riders are the correct weight for their horse and have warned an increasing number of animals are suffering health problems as a result of this.

It was found that nearly two thirds of riders (63 percent) weighed between 10 and 15 per cent of the weight of their horse, which is only considered as "satisfactory".

One researcher, Dr Hayley Randle, said: "the findings should trigger alarm bells among horse owners."

Randle added: "People tend to think that horses are such big animals, they must be okay, and not to take notice of the weight issue of riders."

Dr Randle and fellow researcher, Emma Halliday found that just five per cent of people weighed less than 10 per cent of the weight of the horse - which is the recommended weight ratio.

Forty-nine of the riders (32 per cent) weighed more than 15 per cent of the weight of their animal; a ratio which states there is a risk to the equines welfare.

As well as all the obvious issues such as back pain, an obese rider can cause lameness in horses and the overuse of certain muscles. Not to mention behavioural problems such as rearing, bucking and refusing to go forward.

According to researchers the problem needs to be raised in the equine community and riders need to be made aware of the implications of riding a horse too small for them.

It clearly begs the question of what is the correct weight for a rider to be and what if you don't want to over-horse your self?

Do you agree with the recent study or what researchers are saying? Let me know by tweeting me @FurryMane. 

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Badminton accepted entries and waiting list

The 2013 Mitsubishi Motors Badminton Horse Trials (2nd-6th May) entry list has been headed by reigning Olympic, World and European Champion Michael Jung. He is also joined by 3 of his 4 fellow German Team gold medalists, as well as the whole British Silver medal team. Last but not least, all 5 of the New Zealand bronze medal team are also hoping to take part. 

Never before have we seen such a strong line up for the long running major eventing competition in the world. Almost 150 riders wished to take part and the leading 85 horses on recent form have been accepted. The remainder of these have been put on a waiting list and it is more than likely a few will at least get to run.

I have been very lucky to meet one contender; Oliver Townend

William Fox Pitt is a strong contender to pick up the Rolex Grand Slam with his string of five horses to choose from. 7 previous winners of the famous event include Mark Todd, Lucinda Fredericks, Paul Tapner, Mary King, Oliver Townend, William Fox Pitt and the only winner of the Rolex Grand Slam to date; Pippa Funnell.

I am sure I am not alone in hoping the rain starts to hold off so we can start to look forward to one of the biggest events on the British eventing calendar.

A full list of entrants can be found here and a full list of the waiting list can be found here. For all details of tickets and prices then please visit the main Badminton website: http://www.badminton-horse.co.uk

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Yet more rain!

Very muddy legs!

I don't know about you but I am fed up of the constant rainy weather. So far it hasn't managed to ruin any of my plans but I do feel sorry for the eventers who have paid entry fees and put so much time and hard work in to preparing for their season, only to find out venues have sadly had to cancel due to wet weather and unsuitable ground.

I almost feel lucky that most of my dressage competitions are held on a surface so we only have to contend with mucky legs rather than cancelled events. You may be thinking that the showing season should be well underway for me now, but I have made the very difficult decision to take a little break from showing and Veteran qualifiers whilst I concentrate on my dressage and affiliating Ceaser. That doesn't mean to say you won't find us showing at all this season, but I have decided to give Working-Hunter another pop this year, alongside dressage. This could very well change in a few weeks but for now I am looking forward to doing something different this season!

L-R: Me, Tom Whitaker, Louise, Paula, Megan and Laura.

I had a break from competing this weekend as it was Arena UK's Riding Club Presentation Evening and a few of us from the yard had some prizes to pick up! It was a fantastic night and lovely to catch up with friends I haven't seen since September since we were last out showing. Ceaser and I took overall ridden champion in both Ridden Veteran and Riding Pony, which I was thrilled with! To say our 2012 season started off how it did, I was absolutely over the moon. Louise, our yard manager took in-hand overall champion in the Ex-racehorse class with my dad's horse, Khalisa. Two other liveries also picked up four prizes between them, which was nice as we came home with our hands full of rosettes! We were thrilled to find out the one and only Tom Whitaker was handing out the prizes of the evening so of course I took the opportunity to have lots of photos with him. Thank you to Arena UK and Carole who runs the Riding Club for organising such a lovely evening.

Showing off our winnings!

It has been a very busy few weeks for both Ceaser and I. As I am sure you have read, we have had some good dressage scores from our latest two competitions. This has meant we have had a very successful and promising start to the 2013 season which has given me quite a lot of confidence to go and succeed. Ceaser is working lovely at home and has enjoyed hacking a lot more as part of our schooling.

He had a small reaction to his flu and tetanus last week, which we fully expected. However, we were initially worried about another anaphylactic shock so a mere cold was fine! I only noticed he'd had a small reaction when I was re-clipping him and he started to shiver when rug-less, which is quite unlike him! After a quick phone call to my vet, she assured me it was to be expected, told me to rug him up well, give him a sachet of bute and not to worry. As usual, she was right and the next day he was back to banging his door wanting breakfast! Typical coloured!

Our yard is undergoing quite a few changes at the moment as well, which means I find myself not having a lot of time to update this blog as much as I would like. Between writing new livery contracts, doing freelance work, completing my masters, riding and helping on the yard I am absolutely shattered. The changes are all currently being announced on the yards facebook but they include new facilities, a name change and another new manager coming to work alongside our current manager!

My sponsor, Charles James Fox recently announced he wanted all of his sponsored riders to appear in his clothing catalogue so I took the opportunity to ask the lovely Gemma to come and take some photos of Ceaser and I wearing the Born & Bred clothing. The photos are gorgeous! If you want to check out the Born & Bred range then follow this link.  Charles James Fox offers some lovely competition clothing that is worth a look. I love my base layer which keeps me warm on the coldest of days, but also cool on the warmest of days - they are fabulous!

My next outing with Ceaser is hopefully going to another affiliated dressage outing. I am all set to join British Dressage now so we aren't just limited to Prelims when we're doing the affiliated competitions. I know I say it over and over again, but if it wasn't for Ceaser and my addicition to competing I'd be a very rich person! (well, not rich, but at least have money!). I would just like to say a huge thank you to my two very good friends, Sam and Louise for helping me complete my dressage wardrobe! Apparently I needed a nicer jacket to wear to dressage competitions than the one I had previously, so they very kindly purchased me one and some lovely white jodhpurs! I did say that surely it was better to turn up looking like you didn't know what you're doing and then go and win, but they wanted me to look professional! Thank you guys :)

I promise to try and update a little more from now. University work has slowed down as we are now close to finishing. Quite honestly I cannot believe how quickly my masters has gone. It doesn't seem two minutes ago I was starting.

Good Luck to all those competing this weekend and for all the eventers out there - I hope you get out soon!



Sian and Ceaser.

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At A enter in working trot....and avoid heavy rainfall!

I must be the most unluckiest person on earth when it comes to book in for dressage tests. Every time I book in for a dressage competition, the date comes around and once again this awful English weather decides to go against me and throw some rain or heavy snow in.

We had it all yesterday. Hail, sleet, rain and snow - just like we did a few weeks back at our affiliated dressage debut for 2013! Luckily Ceaser is quite well behaved in weather like this so we fortunately had no problems. I am sure if it had have been high winds then this could well have been quite a different story!

Arriving at the venue in pouring rain and sleet wasn't what I had in mind as one thing Ceaser will not do is stand on the lorry patiently and let me tack him up inside. Thankfully I seem to have quite a following of supporters coming with me to competitions at the moment, so whilst I put his massage pad on, we had one person holding Ceaser, one taking his travel boots off, one standing on the ramp in case he did decide to panic and two people watching! Ceaser is very people orientated which means so long as lots of people are about and fussing him he will quite happily stand on the lorry - posh pony!

Due to the rain I decided to wait until 10 minutes before my first test to hop on, which in turn allowed Ceaser to have the massage pad on for a little longer. The warm up arena was rather boggy and must have been a little tough going but nevertheless Ceaser warmed up lovely and did everything I asked promptly. I decided to go without my spurs again as I am finding of late I'm not needing them.

First up was Novice 28 which is a lovely, easy going test and great to use as a warm up for an Elementary test. It is quite symmetrical which also always makes riding it much nicer!

Once we had entered at A and proceeded in working trot I think I must have forgotten to breath as all too soon it was over. In my opinion it went nicely, despite falling in to one of the trot to walk transitions a little too abruptly. That was probably my fault though as it's something Ceaser doesn't usually do!

After watching bits of other peoples tests I was rather surprised to say the least to find out I had won the Novice section with a whopping 66.67%, qualified for the Veteran dressage finals as well as the UK Riders Challenge! Clever pony!!

Next up was Elementary 42 which has a few difficult movements in that requires rather a lot of concentration. I always find it off putting to find Ceaser is the smallest pony in the section as well and this time it was by about 3 hands!

Before going in to do my test I had quickly changed from my snaffle bit to the double bridle as Elementary 42 has a few medium movements in which I struggle to get Ceaser back from. Usually it is only the medium canter to working canter which he struggles with - and simply only because of excitement he gets to stretch his legs! However, after having a quick canter in the warm up ring with my double bridle on, he didn't feel right and not as relaxed as he had with the snaffle in. With a quick run back to the lorry we fetched the snaffle again, quickly changed again and trotted off into the arena!

Apart from breaking in to trot a little too early when I asked for the working canter from the medium canter it all went well. The counter canters were spot on, as was the walk to canter transitions.

Again, rather too quickly the test was over and we were running back to the lorry in awful hail to quickly load Ceaser on to the lorry out of the rain!

Getting my results for the Elementary test was nerve-wracking, but I was over the moon to find we had got a respectable 3rd place and 62.81%, with the yard owner taking the top two spots on a rather huge, gorgeous warmblood. Being placed behind such an extravagant mover and in front of other big, well bred types was by far enough for me!

The judges comments were very fair and commented at the end of both tests what a great partnership we made and how hard Ceaser clearly tried for me.

The whole day was yet again, another successful one. Ceaser never fails to make me smile, even on the gloomiest of days. He always tries his hardest for me, despite the awful weather conditions and although he was by far the smallest in his classes, being placed above horses much bigger than him is fantastic! It really does just go to show that cobs can do dressage and you don't need something well bred to go out and do well! After all, Ceaser is only a cob cross Connemara!

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Likit Products launch BRAND NEW flavours in time for summer

Likit Products are all individually made with YOUR horse in mind to help prevent boredom when stabled or in the field. Each "toy" provides equines with hours of fun, offering a safe way of keeping your horse happy at all times throughout day and night.

The formulation for Likits was developed with top equine nutritionist, Dr Derek Cuddeford BSc, MSc, PhD so you be assured you are giving your horse a top quality product that is completely safe to feed.

Offering a variety of toys which range in difficulty, Likits really have thought of it all with their products. From the Likit Holder which is classed as a low difficulty challenge to the Bordem Buster which is classed as a high challenge; Likits have something for every horse in mind.

If your horse loves the Likit company as much as mine does then he will be pleased to know that three new flavours will be hitting his favourite store soon!

Likit Products have finally announced that their new summer flavours are due to hit tack shops and stores near you now - so don't delay, hurry there now!

To get your mouth watering and hooves clattering I won't put off announcing the new flavours anymore:

- Strawberry
- Mango
- Pineapple

These will be replacing the current Winter flavours; Candy Cane, Gingerbread and Cinnamon on sale, so if your horse loves one of these flavours hurry to your tack store and stock up before they disappear!

If your horse loves his Likit Products as much mine does they treat him to an early Easter present by entering Likits exclusive competition to win a multipack containing both Likits and Little Likits in the new flavours.

When I got a sneak peak of these new flavours at BETA 2 weeks ago, they smelt that sweet I wanted to have a try of one myself.

What are you waiting for, enter here!

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#DancePonyDance From Three UK - What can he do?

There we have it, the UK's very first moonwalking Shetland Pony!

Three UK sent a number of equine journalists and bloggers lots of goodies earlier this week to let them know a bout new ad campaign that was set to be released on 1st March. None of us had any idea what was going to be revealed, all we knew was a "plucky pony" wanted to show us what he can do!

And boy didn't he do that.....?

I wonder how many young girls are badgering their daddies for a dancing pony now? Really though, who could blame them?

The advert was filmed entirely in the Shetlands and starred a real pony named, Socks. Socks dances to the beat of Fleetwood Mac's 'Everywhere' and lucky for him, is a real cutie!

Three UK's new advert campaign is set to build on Three's appreciation for the country's love of sharing, particularly when it comes to cute animal pictures.

The 17-day campaign launched tonight during Coronation Street and features a combination of 60 and 30 second versions.

To encourage the general public to get involved and inspire the act of sharing even further, a web-based app hosted by YouTube, ponymixer.com has been created which encourages people to join the fun and create their own customised dancing Socks.

If you loved what this plucky pony, Socks can do, then why not go and create your own.

With a scrape of a hoof and a flick of his Rod Stewart-esqu mane, Socks broke into an effortless moonwalk across a picturesque Scottish field and the whole of the country immediately undoubtedly fell in love with him.

Surely this is the first pony that can #DancePonyDance ?

If you missed the advert view it here: http://youtu.be/Ekr05T9Iaio .

#DancePonyDance 

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BETA - What I got up to! Guest blog for the Likit company.

I apologise I am a little late with this blog and update but things have been rather hectic at home, what with university, work and the start of the competition season. Anyway, as promised, here is my blog about my day at BETA International in Birmingham.

Every year, BETA holds a fantastic 3-day trade show at the N.E.C in Birmingham to introduce new equine and canine services to the general public, livery owners, breeders and more.

This year, the exhibition was held on February 17-19th and as promised was as jam packed as the previous years. Hundreds of exhibitors turned out to showcase their exciting new developments and ideas for the coming year.

To read more of this blog please visit the Likit website in which this article has been created for. The blog should be on their website within the next 72 hours.

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