“Show Me Your Calendar…” – Email 8

Hello ,

Thank you so much for your messages re. Mums and their sayings and first ponies from last week’s email. I received a lovely photo and story from the Shetland Pony Club sisters Liz and Rosemary Miller amongst others. We’ll include their letter in the next IH Magazine but just have a look at the arrival of their first pony 😊

Cassius duly arrived – a 13.3hh Welsh cross Arab grey family pony, that started everything for us. Attached is a great picture of us about 1972, with Rosemary on board Cassius and me in the front in the yellow dress. Note – no saddle, bridle, hat and open toe sandles!

Is there anything about this picture that feels familiar to any of you? Those days always seemed sunny – or is that just a trick of the mind?

And for a little inspiration…

“Show me your calendar and I will tell you your priorities. Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you where you’re going.” ― Kevin Kelly

I trust your friends are all Life Enhancers (do check), the calendar part caught my attention as it’s so true (but easy to forget). We’ve heard of goals. We’ve heard of systems. But the proof of the pudding is what have we got written down on our calendars? I have an old fashioned paper calendar on my desk and it’s great to see priorities at a glance.

If you want to prepare your horse for some occasion you’ll have some dates in the calendar. A special date for Pie is the Lambourn Fun ride in September 2025. I need to know he’s fit enough, that we are prepared to jump a little, his feet will be good and he’ll be clipped out a week or so in advance (he has Cushings). We chose to miss 2023 as it was too hot and the ground too hard, but then, of course, there’s that other saying ‘It’s Intelligent to have a plan but foolish to fall in love with it”.

Pie, age 29, at the 2024 Lambourn Fun ride!

Hugo keeps improving but there’s still unravelling to do. By which I mean we look at certain things and think ‘now what’s going on there?’ I’ll explain more in the weeks to come as things get clearer. He’s perfect hacking and we’re going to an arena with jumps this Saturday to work on smooth trot to canter transitions and some calm jumping. I love getting the chance to ‘go deep’ with some of these issues as apart from the personal satisfaction it all helps me answer the IH Member questions.

Which reminds me I’m doing an Ask Me Anything webinar at 8pm on August 6th co-hosted by Sandra Williams (and look out for her latest book)

And we’ll pull in another couple of IH Trainers to give you the best possible experience. Do send any questions to Sharron at office@ihhq.net and if there are any gaps we’ll fill them in with our latest key learning points.

Until then lots of love

Kelly xxx

PS. And what are you going to put in your calendar?