equiteam connected

Based over on the west coast of Scotland, several hours away from the nearest competition centre and an hour’s drive from the nearest arena, Caeleigh Kean chats to Liz Daniels about how she stays motivated to ride and achieve her goals with her lovely young horse Hadley. Juggling a young family, a busy job and a collection of animals, Caeleigh is the perfect example of what hard work, determination and a little bit of support from our EquiTeam community can achieve.

In Caeleigh’s own words…don’t make excuses just go out and do it!

If you are struggling to get motivated or looking for some much needed support and want to join our EquiTeam community, you can find out more at www.equiteam.co.uk

This week Liz, Lou and Liz S are back together for a special EquiTeam catch up. As well as all of the educational and fun content we have enjoyed producing for our EquiTeam members, our Facebook group EquiTeam Connected has been busier than ever with posts and questions about Atypical Myopathy, how to get started with British Dressage, confidence blips, HRT, and loads of encouragement and support when needed.

Have a listen to find out more about our exciting Christmas advert competition and how you can be in with a chance to win some incredible prizes. Our new recommend a friend scheme has also just launched and every time you recommend us to a friend and they sign up, we're giving away one of our awesome EquiTeam bobble hats or hat silks.

Find out how to join our supportive, kind and fun group, and experience a bit of the EquiTeam magic for yourself …here

This week Liz is chatting to one of our EquiTeam members Jen Craig about her rather special and very hot Ginger Ninja, Troy.

Troy came into Jen’s life at just a week old and despite his hot and slightly unpredictable nature, Jen had high hopes for her special boy. After a make or break trip to EquiTeam’s Confidence Camp in 2017 helped Jen re-define who was in charge in their relationship, she set herself the goal of getting him to the Royal Highland Show for the HOYS Working Hunter qualifiers.

Sadly a bout of laminitis and a subsequent diagnosis of EMS meant Jen had to re-evaluate what her goals were and after a long recovery and rehabilitation period Jen set about planning what was next for her and Troy.

She chats about how much of a loss it was to have to give up on her showing goals but also how much fun they have had setting some new goals, culminating in them both qualifying for the Riding Club Dressage Championships with 74% and a win in a huge class of 50 other horses.

Jen’s drive, motivation and positive attitude is inspirational. From 5am alarm calls to juggling a full-time job and a young family, she is sets us all a great example of how if something is important enough to you, you make it happen.

www.equiteam.co.uk 

This week Lou is in the hosting seat to chat to the third member of our EquiTeam trio, Liz Somerville.

Although Liz started riding at a very young age she had to wait till she was 33 years old to finally be able to buy her own horse. In this episode she shares how she worked for her rides by mucking out in army stables, and how she got given plenty of horses over the years, including one as a wedding present, mostly because no one else would ride them! And no matter how hard she tried to get out of horses and into a normal job, she kept boomeranging back to the horses.

17 years on from starting an equine vet practice with her husband, joining EquiTeam has brought her full circle once again. Being able to combine two jobs she loves with helping people and spending time with the horses is a pretty perfect combination.

If you would like to access some of the downloads and videos mentioned in this episode, you can join us here at www.equiteam.co.uk/register/equiteam/ 

This week we are chatting to Jodie Neill aka The Eventing Dentist. Jodie is an amateur eventer, a full-time cosmetic dentist and Mum to a one year old little boy, Ollie.

Jodie’s own journey into horse ownership started when she went looking for a dark bay school master called Mr Darcy to go eventing, and ended up with a 4 year old chestnut mare called Clover or Pops as she is affectionately known at home.

From not knowing what it was to get a horse on the bit and being terrified to jump their first 75cm show jumping track, Jodie and Clover have since been double clear at Intermediate level, completed a 3* and finished 9^th at the Novice Championships at Gatcombe.  

What really shines through during this episode is Jodie’s honesty about all of the speed bumps they have encountered along the way and how she has tackled them. She is brutally honest about her feelings of being an imposter and ‘not belonging’ in the same collecting ring as the pros.

And when it comes to juggling life, work and being a Mum, Jodie sums it up beautifully…. ”If you want it enough and need it enough you will make it happen” even if that means riding at 9pm in the pouring rain!

You can follow Jodie on Instagram @theeventingdentist or on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/theeventingdentist 

Want to give yourself the best chance of jumping a successful course of show jumps? Walking the course properly is a good place to start and in this episode the team from EquiTeam share their top tips on exactly what you need to be doing

How many of us run round the course usually because we are short of time or worse still spend most of the course walk chatting to friends as we go! It’s so important to walk the course through the eyes of our horse and see what they see as they jump round, so be aware of the collecting ring, the Judge's box, spooky water trays and fillers at the side of the ring. Liz Daniels also explains how to accurately stride out your distances in the doubles or for related distances and how the distances you walk may alter how you want to ride the course.

EquiTeam members can access our handy download with all of the distances between fences here and if you aren’t a member and would like to sign up then come and join us

Want to nail your dressage test but unsure how to warm up properly? Liz Daniels and Liz Somerville share some of their top tips to help you warm up and go into your test feeling prepared and ready to go.

It’s too easy to feel intimidated by a busy warm up or to go in without a plan so in this episode we chat through timings, how to make sure your horse is warmed up properly, relaxed and in front of your leg, and with you both ready to ride the test. Whether you ride through the whole test in the warm-up may depend on your horse but we also share how you can break the test down into the individual movements to make sure you both know what to expect and how important it is to give yourself enough time to run through your test in your head before you go in.

In this episode we kick off our new 'Coaching Uncovered' series with an interview with EquiTeam's resident coach Liz Daniels.

Usually in the interviewer's chair this week roles are reversed as Liz Somerville finds out more about Liz Daniels 'the Coach' and hears about her passion for helping people and their horses through her own and Lou Gilling's EquiTeam Confidence Camps, and now through  our own EquiTeam membership. 

We chat all things coaching including how Liz got started, what she loves about her job and also what really gets on her goat. She shares some incredible highs including getting to ride the legend that is Valegro and some horrible lows, as well as some epic words of advice for those looking for a regular coach. Brutally honest at times about her own insecurities when it comes to coaching others, Liz's passion to help people learn and build a three way partnership between client, horse and coach shines through. 

If you want to access some of Liz's coaching skills you can sign up to EquiTeam's membership platform here for weekly video coaching sessions, blogs, downloads and lots more!

EquiTeam’s Liz Daniels chats to Lyla Cansfield to chat about natural horsemanship and dealing with spooky horses.

Lyla uses a unique blend of natural horsemanship principles alongside sensitively applied traditional ground and ridden techniques for riders of any discipline to achieve transformational results with their horses and help them understand each other.

Performed correctly there is no doubt that natural horsemanship is a valuable part of training – but done incorrectly does it always achieve the desired results? Liz put Lyla on the spot and asked her thoughts on using natural horsemanship as an excuse for less confident riders?

Umbrellas, ground work and ridden exercises; Lyla shares some of her tricks and tips for helping riders work with a spooky horse.

If people are interested in learning more about the correct practices you can check out Lyla’s website here https://bit.ly/3NPg5VX 

Insta verses reality, keyboard warriers, authenticity and finding your community

If you are an equestrian trying to navigate your way through the world of social media then this episode is for you. Rhea Freeman joins our own Liz Daniels to share their experience and words of wisdom when it comes to the ups and downs of social media. With many years of experience in marketing, PR and social media there’s not much these two ladies don’t know about this topic.

From how to mute someone, or how to full on block those nasty keyboard warriers Liz and Rhea discuss the importance of controlling the controllables and being aware that what we see on social media every day is just a snapshot in time and not the reality of every day life.

The reality of life with horses is that it goes wrong more often than it goes right and we all need to be better at sharing the good and the bad. Authenticity builds trust and where we have trust we can connect with other likeminded horse lovers and find our own safe community to laugh, support, commiserate and have fun.

If you would like to join EquiTeam’s own community you can find out more here

Rhea can be found at www.rheafreemanpr.co.uk or in her own awesome Facebook community, Small & Supercharged which provides inspiration and support for small businesses, influencers and bloggers in the country and equestrian space  https://www.facebook.com/groups/small.and.supercharged/