The way to heaven is on horseback

This time next year I will have bought my own horse and will have so much more to tell you all, because I plan to keep writing on my blog, and letting you all know about the adventures that I am sure are to come. No-one said anything that was worth having in this life was easy to get, and that is one of the truest quotes that I think I've ever heard.  Today I downloaded and printed out off the BHS website 'Buying your own horse' it is a guide of things that you need to remember when buying your first horse. I thought that it was really useful and highly recommend it to anyone out there who is buying there first horse. So head over to the BHS website to have a look.  But I was wondering if any of you had any top tips about owning your first horse? Or the process of buying your first horse? I know it's not going to be a quick process and it's going to take time to find the right horse but I have every faith in myself that I can manage to find myself (with th...

When I first started my blog I thought that it would be something that I would update once or twice every few weeks but never did I think that I would be updating most days, and when I wasn't updating that I would be thinking about what my next post would be. Now here I am three months in and on my 75th post. Its suprised, me cause in the past i've had blog after blog after blog, I kept making them thinking 'i will start doing this again tomorrow' then just not bothered. But this blog's been different, I honestly think that I have surprised not only myself by my frequent updates, and hopefully my daily update's now that I am starting to feel better.  The only thing that annoys me about my blog, and that I would like to say sorry to you all about is that I can't tell you about anything horsey in my life going on at the minute cause of being ill. BUT here come's the best bit of news that I think you'll all agree with me... In two or three week...

Well I can honestly say that I have never been a fan of the olympics and before they were on I didn't really have any interest in watching them at all, but from watching the first day of the eventing, I fell in love with them, more so than I thought I would do, only the horses of course though! So when the paralympics start I think I will find my self glued to the seat watching as much as possible of the riding, and probably nothing else. In so many ways I have more respect for the paralympics than the normal olympics because while competitors in any of the two olympics HAVE to work hard I personally think that the people competing in the para-olympics have to work just that little bit harder to get what they want! But by no means does that make them my favourite as Carl Hester will always be my favourite rider and a rider that I have 100% respect for. So I decided while reading ' Horse and Hound Magazine' that I would let you all know about Team GB's riding team so ...

In the Beijing Olympics in 2008 the horses used in the pentathlon were said to cause farcical scenes with fall after fall after fall. This was said to be the fault of the horses that were either hired or loaned to the competitors. It was not blamed to be rider error or a combination of both rider error and horse error, it was labelled as being the horses fault or this is what it said in ' Horse and Hound Magazine'. This horse was said to have been to spooky and sharp, but is it not a combination of rider's aids and rider error AS WELL as the horse being spooky. Can we really just blame it on the horse, when we are the ones that tell the horse what to do, by no means am i saying it was 'just the riders fault' couldn't it have been a combination of both?.    For the London 2012 Olympics it was said that a total of two years if no longer was spent attempting to find the right horse for the right competitor. They made sure that the horse was at the right l...

I've always been a music lover, I can't imagine not having music in my life, earlier on in my life I had a very simple taste in music, I was a rock chick plain and simple, anything with a  great drum beat, and guitar solo, as well as that rough singing voice that most male and some female rock stars have. But then about three years ago I became more aware of other styles of music, and started liking dubstep, rap, and dance club music like DJ Sammy but I also started liking chart music more as well! So you can imagine my delight when last winter I found out that I would be riding in a dressage to music competition. It wasn't an easy task and it was a paired competition, but disaster struck the night before, when my partner and me were practicing for the actual thing, and Jane came flying off :/ she hurt her shoulder which in the past year she had shattered and had got a metal plate in! But we kept trying it wasn't our best but we did the best that we could do, even thou...

Tomorrow's posted will be another one based on a article from my horse and rider magazine or from my horse and hound magazine.  That or it will be a general issue in riding that I feel strongly about! I am happy to say that I am updating more frequently, and I plan to keep doing this, because it's something fun and relax, whilst being able to focus on my riding. Off to bed now See you all tomorrow A Girl With A Dream

Today I was reading a section in Horse and Rider magazine to do with a reader's confidence issue, it was in the 'Q&A' (question and answers) section below is what the article said the part in bold is the question in bold and italics is the answer so here goes;  'I was recently bucked off and tramples. I have now developed a fear of horses, although I would love to work in the equine industry, which has been a life-long dream of mine. How can I overcome my fear? '  ' A career with horses can be very rewarding, but it does carry risks and accepting the risk of injury is important as well as well as learning to stay as safe as possible. Understanding why your accident happened and why you horse bucked is important when trying to regain confidence. Bucking can be caused by a variety of things, including pain, excitement, poorly-fitting tack or a rider fault. I'd recommend enrolling on a course such as the BHS Horse Owner's Certificates, Stage E...

So yesterday my mum took me to the zoo, as well as my little brother and his girlfriend. We went to twycross Zoo which happens to be one of the most famous zoo's in the uk mainly though for it's monkeys, because for those of you that know the Tetley (not sure how you spell it) Tea adverts, the chimpanzee's that were used in the adverts now live at Twycross. It's my favourite zoo because I have been going there since I was a little kid and although they do not include the big cats its a lovely place to go, and last time that I went there it was February and snowing but it was still nice! Unfortunately there was a lot of work going on, they were building a new penguin cove, and penguin walk way, so that they could move around whenever they want to and will have a lot more space than they normally do! They are also building an area for Tigers, Lions, Hyena's and Dholes, not really sure what they are.  But as I am interested in doing photography mainly to do ...

Hey everyone,  hope your all managing to read my posts easily if the font or the colour of the font makes my posts harder to read let me know and I will play around with them and make them more readable.  Today my mum took me, my brother, and my brothers girl friend to one of my all time favourite places in the UK possibly even the world coming in second place to anywhere that is horse related! I took loads of pictures (mainly in black and white) and have not yet put them on my computer! But when I do I'll make sure that I put some of the best ones up so you can hopefully tell why I want to become a photographer,  however I would like to be a photographer that focus on photographing horses, as these will always be my main passion. As I am writing this post I am thinking about to things, the first thing is a book that I read called the 'One Dollar Horse'  and secondly 'Jennifer Saunders - back in the saddle'. The book 'One Dollar Horse' is a real...

Well today I decided that I would make a post during the day instead of my usual habit of waiting til 10 o'clock at night and then deciding that I want to start posting, because by that point I normally do not feel like posting anything.  So today my mum took me up to the Blue John mines jewellery shop at Castleton called 'Blue John Gem's' It's a really good shop and they sell all different stones these included, Amber, synthetic Opal, Blue John and Amethyst. With my name being Amber you can probably guess that I am always drawn to Amber, my mum's favourite tends to be Amethyst as her favourite colour is purple. I found myself a pair of not overly expensive dangly earrings (although it must have taken me over an hour to decide). My earrings are Silver and where they dangle it's a hoop and dangling inside the hoop is a piece of Amber. Also where the stud part of the earring is, it is a piece of Amber.  Close up of earrings :') Showing the ...

Today I have chosen to use my riding pictures that my mum has spent taking for me over the years, and tell you a bit about each photo, I'm not sure how many photo's I intend to do at the start of this post but I will warn you all in advance that this could possibly be a long post with plenty of pictures of all the horses that I have the pleasure to ride, this will very from horse's that I have rode when I was young to horses that I still ride to this day like Jake. Also to let you all know I will be posting pictures of some of my textiles work tomorrow so you can all let me know what you think and you can see what I have spent my time doing so far this summer holiday. Right on to the main part of my post PHOTOGRAPHS!   First off is Gatsby, Gatsby is a horse that I have been riding since the beginning of January but that I have instantly fallen in love with and have been riding him ever since, this was the week before my last lesson when we were working on jump...

hi y'all well there's been no riding today unfortunately not sure when there next will be but hopefully there will be some soon as I am missing it like mad!  okay so today's thing that's got me thinking is... the horses Rhythm. Now to most people this doesn't sound that important but to us horse people it is a key thing when riding, whether when doing flat work or when Jumping.When Jumping it is Important to keep an even rhythm because it helps to set the horse up for the jump that is about to do and it doesn't make the jump appear to be sloppy. Also because if your horse keeps speeding up and then slowing down, it makes the horse unbalanced, which gives you more risk of knocking a pole down or of slipping out of canter (if that is the pace that you are in).  Another thing that I would like to mention is riding a straight line in a dressage test. When Gemma first started teaching me she spent two or three weeks making us ride a straight line which to st...

Lining him up with the mountain block (he's too big for me to get on off the ground) Trying to figure out if my stirrups are right or too long! Pulling my girth up and again. Jerry thinking 'it is far to hot to do work but your making me'. and again. Having a leisurely hack around the park with the group. Jerry making little Tom look even smaller than normal. Confused look but loved this horse.  So finally taken the time to upload the pictures now that my mum has put them on her laptop so that I could nick them. He looks big and when I first got on him I though wow this is a long way to fall down, but then when we started walking and I got used to the size of him I wasn't as bothered. I also found that cause of his size it was a lot easier and you could feel the Diagonal without having to look down. Until Next Time  A Girl With A Dream

Today we have been driving all the way to ripon in Yorkshire, to meet and pick up my brother from his annual camp, which he wasn't enjoying. Me and my mum woke up at 6 am got dressed, picked up Hannah his gf, and drove all the way to be therefor two minutes and to then leave again. So I decided that while we were driving home that I would take the time to post and update you all :) Well so far there has been nothing remotely horse like in my day except driving past a horse box and saying wish I was ridin now! But so far no luck maybe later though got to stay positive Today Ive decided to spend some time talking about lateral work doing things like leg yielding, pushing the hindquarters out on to an inner track in a school. When I first started doing leg yielding with gemma on a Wednesday night I thought tht whilst it was good it was also quite hard but I did really enjoy it the first thing that I did was work on turning on the forehand, I did this mainly when riding Gatsby but...

p.s. tomorrow I will try and make more time to read all your lovely blogs but at this moment in time im exhausted!

hiya everyone its me and I am back again :) two posts in one day you lucky people! Time for the bad news then on to some seriously exciting things! The bad news is that when on the way to my sisters, my mums car started making a funny noise (we wouldnt have heard it if we hadn't got the window open because I was too hot and we hadn't turned the music off because we were going past a horse! The car started self revving and me and mum jumped out when there was loads of smoke just coming up from under the bonnet, the RAC comes out and they think that the car was using too much detail and was not working properly! So now she has another car for a bit its a honda and is nice! Now my good news I WILL be seeing the Spanish school of riders (this year will also be a special year as it is the first year to include a female, in the production! Also carl hester will be featuring there and its worth going just to see him! Until I put the pics on A Girl With A Dream xx

hey y'all. sorry its taken me so long to reply I have been meaning to do it for days, and kept thinking 'I need to update'. Then I look at my laptop and think what was it that I needed to do. Well here I am back again with new things to tell you all.  First of all is my riding lesson that I went to on Tuesday, I rode a 17/18hh horse that looks like a brown shire horse, and he is called Jerry, He was at my old riding school called 'Parkside' in Alfreton. (There will be pictures of him to follow later). We went for what was supposed to be a quiet hack out around Alfreton park at least this is what it started out as. The first quarter of the ride was calm until we got into the woods where there were four idiotic boys, messing around with fire crackers as you do! Then followed the horses down and tried spooking the horses on the road that goes through the park. Then they started throwing the stupid fire crackers again and almost ended up hitting one of the othe...

hey guys sorry it has taken so long for me to post but I am back again and will hopefully be posting more often again. Well guys it has been a little bit hectic the past few days since I have posted.  On the Friday we took my sister to get her new car, its a bright red it looks good and it is a Ford KA just like the last one that she had, except her last one was black. Then in the afternoon I went up to one of my favourite places in the world! BROOMFIELD! I have got some pictures that I will post for you all later. I didn't do any riding (don't think my stomachs up to it) but I did spend two hours fussing horses and mucking them out! To 'normal' (Non-riding people, I actually think that they might be the ones that aren't normal but who knows?) people this might sound pretty rubbish but to me I absolutely LOVED it! When I walked in to the front barn which is where Arthur is, the first thing that he did was make a noise at me until I walked up to him to stroke hi...

Got in from a great night with my big sister and good day with her and just thought that it was time to check up on the olympic score, completely buzzing! Carl Hester and Uthopia is currently in first place with a score of 77.720 completely amazing in second place is also another Team GBR Laura Bechtolsheime and Mistral Hojris (slightly paculiar name if you ask me) with a score 76.839, to say this the first day of Dressage I am So excited, hopefully we will manage a gold medal! Not getting my hopes up, because you never know what is going to happen next! But is a good start for us in the UK.  Denmark is running in second followed by Spain in third. Between second and first percentage wise there a space of 5% woop woop. So who knows what tomorrow will bring. Can't wait to see or hear that. For those of you that want to see Charlotte on Valegro she will be doing her test at 14:10. I will be at broomfield at this time so I will have to catch up on that. Tomorrow is the day! I am ...