Megan Jones Training Trip

A training trip down to Hallmark Farm had been discussed and pencilled in for October, when I received word that the date we had chosen was now going to be when the final renovations at the shop would happen. I was really disapointed that I was going to miss out on it, but the thought of trying to reschedule with so much going on went into the "too hard basket". Thankfully Letisha was not going to stand for that, and quickly rang my mum to get her on board with making it happen. We went from not going at all to booked in within 2 days - heading down to Woodside the day after Melrose Ag Show! Very grateful to Megan Jones for squeezing us into her busy schedule on such short notice, especially as we also stayed in the Air BnB on her property, so it was fitting two people, a horse and multiple lessons in.

Toastie is such an easy traveller and settles in so quickly in new environments. Over the 3 days that we were at Hallmark Farm I had three flatwork lessons and also did a cross country course hire.

Living rurally it can be very difficult - sometimes nigh on impossible - to access regular training and riding lessons. Being able to have multiple lessons in a short time frame really helps cement the new principles (or if returning to an instructor, brush up on old skills) into mind and memory. Of course such trips are time consuming and expensive, and this one certainly wouldn't have happened without Letisha, Faith & Debbie making sure things continued to run smoothly at the shop while I was gone.

Having just had the Melrose Show where Toastie was very tense in the hacking, it was amazing to be able to come away the next day and have a lesson to work on getting her bending, supple, and listening to me - which immediately led to relaxtion.

And then the cross country was so much fun, with Toastie being so keen and tackling things such as ditch, water jump and the bank - she did not like the ditch at the Wilmington ODE training day, was ok with their small water jump, and they didn't have a bank, so it was amazing to have her just taking on these obstacles without any reservations.

Hopefully I can get back there sometime in the not too distant future because it's amazing how much you can learn and improve in such a short time with an instructor who really knows theirs stuff (and has the silver Olympic medal to prove it!).