Welcome
WELL, WE’VE MADE IT — the clocks have gone forwards! Finally, there are more daylight hours to enjoy with your horse. It’s been a particularly tough and extremely wet winter and I know many of you will be pleased to see the back of it — fingers crossed that we have a warm, drier spring to help everywhere start to recover. Despite some really foul weather I do have to give a big shout-out to our ever-growing tribe of Hack 1000 Milers who don’t let a bit of wind and rain stop them clocking up the miles. It’s amazing the positive impact this campaign has had on so many of you and I love following your adventures in our Facebook group. You’re truly an amazing bunch of people who are extremely supportive to one another. In this issue we launch Hack1000Miles 2020 and are giving away a free tracker for you to start logging your miles. If you’re not sure about joining in, you’ve got nothing to lose. It’s free, so why not sign up at hack10000miles.co.uk and give it a go? I’m sure that once you get started, you’ll be hooked! Head to page 10 for more information about the campaign. Training a young horse can be exciting and scary in equal measure. Luckily, for the last four years British Dressage has run a number of Young Horse Forums, which offer expert advice on training a young horse. I went along to the one held at Keysoe in Bedfordshire, and it was an extremely interesting day. You can read the key points from the forum on page 52 — a lot of it doesn’t just apply to young horses, so it’s well worth a look. As an owner of an older horse, I’m well aware that they have some very different and specific needs. To help you keep your golden oldie looking and feeling his best we’ve put together a short series of features, starting in this issue. The first part is all about the importance of keeping your horse mobile to help his joints stay in tip-top condition. Turn to page 74 to read more.
You’ll also find a bumper number of giveaways this month, with prizes to a value of £2,000 up for grabs — turn to page 107 to enter! PS: It would be great to hear from you, so feel free to email me at allison.lowther@ bauermedia.co.uk.