Nicki Strong’s Blog: Finishing 2014 with a flourish!

We catch up with Horslyx Ambassador, Nicki Strong and find out her winter progress so far…

“Our last outing at Larkhill HT seems like a while ago now – I gave Blue a few weeks holiday, which he thoroughly enjoyed, judging by the state of him in the field. Mud pig springs to mind!

He had a chiro treatment and is now back in work and doing lots of hacking with a bit of flat and pole work too. I’ll ramp up his jumping and dressage now to get some winter training and practice in before the next event season.”

“In the mean time, Monty who returned to me from loan in September has been doing loads of hacking and strengthening work and feeling awesome for it! I decided (at very short notice) to take him to some local dressage for an outing, taking the place of a friend who was planning to withdraw. Our prep wasn’t ideal as we hadn’t been able to run through the test (P7), as it was the very next day, but we went for it as the outing would do Monty good. He’s not been out for months due to a minor injury in his loan home, and then getting back up to fitness, so he was tense and a bit excitable at times but kept a lid on it very well. His canter transitions were a little exuberant, and he lost concentration once or twice, and I rode him a little defensively as he’s quite the big horse for little old me! We were awarded 65.25% and that was good enough for third place, with the winner on 66% so not far off at all! I’ve actually never ridden a test on Monty so was chuffed with this, and will enjoy trying some Novice tests with him, which he’s very capable of. The weather was awful (my girth tells a story!), so nice to pick up a placing and posh ribbon for braving the cold and rain! No fair weather riders here!”

“Now the winter is well and truly set in, I’m making sure they are all getting plenty of Mobility Horslyx to keep them nice and supple so they can keep performing to their best. It’s a great easy way to get a daily dose into them without having to spend a fortune on supplements, as well as keeping them occupied whilst you are cracking on with other things. If your horse has one thing on his Christmas list, make it one of these!”