Back In Training!

Things here are still going very well, I eased Nico back in to training mode for the first week and a half after the long haul down as he definitely needed some down time to recover from the trip, he is now back into training mode and we've started training this week with Albrecht having a few lessons to get things going which has been great and I am very much looking forward to the training over the next month as I think we can make some major improvements, the facility has been great to train at, we have a beautiful open indoor arena to train in under the shade and a lovely outdoor dressage ring to school tests as well as a full size track to take the horses out for some chill time and the owners and staff have been extremely welcoming as well which always helps, Nico has been in each of the arenas as well as on the training track and seems to be very happy in each though he doesn't particularly like the little white ducks that roam around the property, guess we don't have many of those up in Canada so yesterday we spent some time out chasing the ducks, he seemed to like them more after he realized that they were more afraid of him than he was of them haha;)  We haul out to our first show the Gold Coast Opener this weekend at the Jim Brandon Equestrian Center in Wellington, it's a CDI*** and will no doubt be a challenge, there are 37 horses starting in the PSG and I1 classes with riders from Canada, USA, Ireland, the Netherlands and Columbia, amongst others, there are approx 15 Canadians in the field and being that this is our first outing of the season I would be happy just to have a couple relaxed clean tests, the field is full of quality horses and riders.  We have the jog tomorrow so we will take it one day at a time and for now will focus on getting ourselves through the jog.  I also wanted to take this time to thank all of my amazing clients back home for their patience in my absence, I'm enjoying every minute of being here and it truly is an amazing learning opportunity but I also really miss all of my students and horses back home and am thankful for my clients support through this and I want to assure everyone that I am soaking up every bit of knowledge I can in order to bring it home to share with my students when I get back, I am very grateful not only for having this opportunity to develop as a rider and trainer but also as a coach as I know I will have plenty more tools in my toolbox to share with all my students in the future.  I hope everyone is doing well!