Hello from New Zealand! Caitlin here and I have had a pretty exciting start to my year
Back in January I started my own business – Spellman Equestrian. I am a full-time, self-employed business owner now. It has been super awesome! I get to do what I love all day and ride lots of horses.
From then, it has been pretty busy, teaching lessons every week and ride horses every day, (half of them dont even belong to me).
I spent February figuring out my business, starting my Equitation science diploma and my contact care training. I also started bringing Libby back into work towards the end of February, to get her ready for a competition in March. She has had a bit of time off due to her growing again she is huge!
March was meant to be busy with Horse of the Year, but due to COVID-19 it was cancelled. However, the Working Equitation Show was still on at the end of March. I carried on training for that event.
The event finally came around and I took Libby and River. One of my friends rode River for her first Working Equitation Show. (Not Rivers, it is his favourite thing to do apart from eating of course). They did so well together and Libby managed to pick up second in her Ease of Handling round – this is when you get judged on how well you do each obstacle and how smooth it is. She also got sixth overall!
I also rode a demo on River that day too. We did the best Speed Round we have ever done and he even got all his flying changes! A Speed Round is when you do the obstacle course as fast as you can. If you knock anything or miss something you get time faults added.
This was Libbys first show for Working Equitation and she had only learnt how to do the gate two weeks before. She absolutely nailed it getting us first in the speed round and third overall.
Then came April which meant Easter! A few of you may know that I get super excited for holidays like Easter or Christmas. This is because I dress my horses up for them! Easter involved bunny ears, bows and tutus. My horses are so used to it now and just stand there. Oh, I forgot to mention St. Patricks Day in March, which involved dress up too! Im looking forward to the rest of April including the school holidays, so I hope to get to do lots of lessons because the kiddies are around. Im also counting down the days till my 18th Birthday on the 1st of May!
Thats all from me for a while, hope everyone is having fun with their horses and feeding them lots of Speedi-Beet and Fibre-Beet!
Keep up to date with what Caitlin is up to by liking her page on Facebook.
