RRR 2014 - the photos!

Its going to take me several days to get to grips with the photos and footage from the RRR but it was, as ever, a fantastic weekend. 

The sun shone nearly all the time (though apparently not as much as it did on Exmoor!) and the horses were all on magnificent form - it was wonderful to see them looking so well and moving so beautifully. 

Our new venue, Boomerang Stables in Berkshire could not have been more welcoming or provided more brilliant facilities for us or the horses. 

Special thanks goes to Kay Humphries who arrived for a short saddle-fitting appointment with Claire and Holly but graciously and generously spent an impromptu 5 hours with us giving us a saddlery clinic and demo of how dramatically saddle fit can affect stride length, movement and soundness.

In order to capture what we needed on film both horses and riders patiently jumped, cantered, stopped, did the same thing again and were incredibly patient and co-operative - thank you all of you and I hope our filming will do you credit...!

We played silly games and did serious schooling, drank gallons of tea, ate mountains of cake and sat round the campfire at night with a fridge and bar so well-stocked they would have done credit to a pub, let alone a marquee...

We were so grateful to Edward who came all the way from Exmoor on Sunday morning to judge our silly games and keep us all in line. None of the filming could have happened without Steve Leigh who not only filmed throughout the RRR but came down early so that he and I could have a trial run with the camera beforehand - if any decent footage comes out then the credit is his!

 Not all the horses fully understood all the games but it didn't really matter...

....they certainly grasped all the important points...

Our biggest thank you has to go to Krista who did a heroic job of sorting out the admin and organisation and Buddy did her proud by looking a million dollars! Sara-Jane Lanning was an inspiration on Friday, teaching horses and riders she had never met before and getting the best out of each and every one - thank you!

 It was a great party - and there will be more to come!