Batten Down the Hatches!!

It has been a blustery couple of weeks at D&L and winter work is well and truly under way. We have completed work on the outdoor arena, we have another barn with 5 Monarch boxes due to be completed soon, the indoor arena has had a new top on the surface and the walker is due to be completed soon also! Now we just need the wind to die down and the fields to dry up!!

While the building work has been in full swing Julia and I have been doing a spot of horse shopping and found two stunning 3 year olds to our team, a mare and a gelding (see photo!!). They are quite the pair and we think they will make excellent additions to the team. On the topic of youngsters, we loose jumped our super pony, Chanel, recently. There is a video on our Facebook page, but safe to say she has springs in her feet!! Can't wait for Julia to start riding her and we will see what she can do!

Teldon has come back into work this week, we are looking at taking him to an early CCI3* in order to get our qualifications. There is talk of increased requirements next season so we are going to start early, he only has so many years left!

Alfie is living his diva-dream!! He went from showing off in front of packed stand at Hartpury, where we were demo riding for Paul Tapner's XC Masterclass, to staring in Horse Health Expo's TV ad which has now been viewed over 18,000 times on Facebook!! There will be no talking to him if he ever finds out... Excitement is really starting to build about the expo, the ad will be shown on Horse and Country TV from Tuesday. It is such an incredible thing to be part of, we never tire of hearing people's reaction, it is clearly something that has been born out of passion for horses and a desire to share knowledge and help educate everyone from professionals to single horse owners and anybody who cares about horses.

Last week I spent a day in Lambourn on a BE 'Good Business Practice in the Equine Industry' course. This is the second one of these courses I have taken part in, and the topics this time covered Insurance and Liability, Accounting, Social Media and Marketing and Health and Safety. These courses are a great innovation from BE. There is so much to running a business, particularly in this industry and those who are keeping up with legislation are going to get caught out, and it can be very costly. The main question we were all left asking was: 'Where are we going to find the time??'

Speaking of time, it is getting late and we have a full yard in the morning. What ever happened to the off season run into Christmas and a bit of a break??