Everything Horse magazine November 2015 | Page 55

Daisy Jackson Training programmes and local competitions It has been a quiet month for me this September, mainly working on training programs and local competitions. Due to the majority of the PSG work now coming along nicely, Tango and I have been mostly focusing on the flying changes as the tempis are the last thing in need of improvement before we can go out and compete at Prix Saint George. Tango and I have been receiving extra help from the marvellous Nicky Barrett to help with the changes and much progression has been made. We now have a few three day training sessions booked in the diary over the next few months so Tango and I will be staying at Nicky’s yard to have some intensive training and make use of the opportunity to watch lessons and others training which I always find very useful. I am really pleased with Blackberry’s rapid progress too. Despite not always finding it easy to focus Blackberry has become a real team player when it comes to training as she tries her very best 100% of the time. Because of this Blackberry and I have already been out to do our very November 2015 • Issue 26 • Everything Horse Magazine first Medium and the fact that Berry is still only 6 years old and the venue was a new one for her, she did very well to gain just over 66% coming 4th. I was thrilled with her performance and the effort she put in and I am very excited about our future as a combination. We are continuing to go out at Medium to see how it goes and gain points towards qualification. Also, over the past month, I had the chance to judge at Woodington Training Centre and had an awful lot of fun as it was for the New Forest Riding Club. There were some lovely combinations and lovely ponies and I have been invited back to do some more judging at Woodington in the future. Listed judge, Heather Ashley, has also kindly offered to let me sit in with her to help bring on my judging skills ready to enable me to become qualified to judge at BD. I really enjoy being involved in the sport in any way I can and give back something as I have gained plenty out of it. It is also great to see lots of young people competing on their ponies showing that dressage is most definitely increasing in popularity which is great to know for the future of our sport. 55