Sterling Essentials Leather Cleaner & Conditioner

For anyone that knows me, over the last 18 months, I have become pretty obsessed with cleaning my tack after every single use - whether I have a hard session in the arena, go for a gentle stroll, or opt for a lunge session for Louie. I detach my bit, wipe down my bridle, girth, girth straps and saddle with a cleaner & conditioner every time - it takes literally five minutes (so no excuses with time!)

Last week, I received the Sterling Essential leather cleaner and conditioner in lavender fragrance, and I was really excited to see how these products stacked up against my existing everyday product. I'd heard really great things about both products from Laura at Boudica Equestrian - the only UK stockists - & I'd also read up about Sterling Essential's careful development of a pH formula that of leather. 

September Round Up

Although September means the end of the summer, I do love the autumn season, with all the beautiful colours that it brings and especially those fabulously fresh mornings - clear blue skies, sun shining strong but the ground is full of dew and the air is crisp and cool 🧡

As the season changes, we all start to think about what we need to do to prepare for the coming months - clipping, what rugs we might need, feeding, turn out & field shelters. I popped a post up a couple of weeks ago with my top tips for horse care in autumn & winter.

But for now, Louie and I have carried on throughout September just as we are...

Dressage Training - 19.09.2020

It had been around four weeks since our last dressage training session and I'd been working hard to practice what we'd done in the last session in between - mostly keeping Louie's neck supple and improving his forward reaction off my leg. However, in between, we'd also been to our first dressage competition since the end of February, and we'd had a couple of showjumping sessions. If you caught up with our most recent showjumping training session, you'll have heard that we were struggling at home a little in between too.

Showjumping Training -12.09.2020

At the end of August, I headed down to Will2Win for our first "proper" showjumping training session since I'd got back in the saddle. It really was a great session - I was relaxed, Louie felt great, and overall it was very productive. We came away with specific homework to work on in between poles and using poles with a stride-distance to small fences. If you didn't catch up with us on that one, you can read about it in the showjumping training blog report that I published.

Last weekend, we headed back to have a second session to build on everything that we'd done in the first session, plus with the support of all of our homework. Or so it should have been...