Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to the Shut up and Ride podcast. I can hear Bert tweeting somewhere in the background. We have two guests on today. I'm not going to introduce them just yet.
We are of course sponsored by Charles Owen. But I'm very excited because we have a Simon back from his hendoo. We have Saimi. How are you doing, Simi? Are you all sunned and beautiful?
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Uh, yeah, I'm feeling recharged, ready to go again. So, yeah, thank you very much. I'm very sad to miss the last pod, though. Cause that.
That sounds like it was really, really good. I've not listened to it yet, but I'm. I'm going to, but it sounds like it's going to be fantastic. Or was fantastic.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: It was fantastic. Do you know what you can do, Simon? Groove. You can go back and listen to it wherever your podcasts are available.
Amazing.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Thanks so much for letting me know.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: I know we're good. Is this gonna be the first time ever, Simon? Grieve? We've recorded a podcast where you're not tired?
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Oh, no, no, I'm still tired. Yeah. I. About being tired and it was quite a long journey back and then I went to Royal Ascot as well and then we had a long day there and. Yeah, so, yeah, I'm still tired, so it's fine.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: One of our.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Don't worry, nothing has changed because she
[00:01:14] Speaker A: knows what you're like. I'm very pleased that we finally have got on the podcast to talk all things British eventing. It's the wonderful Tina Wallace and the brilliant CEO. Nonetheless, that's a very important title of British eventing. Rosie Williams, guys, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.
[00:01:31] Speaker C: Thanks for.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: First of all, I'll introduce you. Rosie, how long is it? It's been a bit a while now, hasn't it? How long have you been in charge of the helm?
[00:01:41] Speaker D: 2 and a half years. I've been here that long.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Wow. Simon leapt forward.
[00:01:46] Speaker D: It's amazing when you're having fun, isn't it, Simon?
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Isn't it just. Goodness me. Time flies.
[00:01:51] Speaker D: September 23rd.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: Wow, that is incredible. I didn't genuinely. Didn't think it'd been that long. And Tina Wallace. Who? I mean, how many ways to introduce you? Tina, you are, I would say, an equestrian, influencer, content creator. Simon and I, friend of Simon and I, we've known you a very long time and it's so lovely to have you on. But you have also just been on a hen do with Simon.
[00:02:15] Speaker C: I am. So I'm staying a little Bit stum till we're warmed up. But we had a very good time and I think we're both still quite tired, aren't we, Simon?
[00:02:25] Speaker B: We are, yeah. I mean, I was only there for half of it, though, and Tina stayed on for another couple of days after I'd gone, so I imagine there are lots of very wild stories that I'm unaware of. And Tina's been having a crazy time. But it's always a way, though, isn't it?
The first night, I think everyone went a little bit cray cray and had a brilliant, brilliant time. And then after that I was like, ooh, let's all just calm down and slow down a little bit. Cause I think we're all suffering a bit the next morning, but slightly.
[00:02:52] Speaker C: Slightly the next morning. Yeah, it was amazing and it was so good that we got to do it all together and.
[00:02:58] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
[00:02:59] Speaker C: Time to get back to a bit of normality now.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: Was it nice to hang out away from horses? Let's be honest. You can say it. It's allowed.
[00:03:08] Speaker C: Yeah, 100%. It was.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: It was lovely.
[00:03:12] Speaker C: It does still feel nice to come back to them, though. I could have done a few more days. I was there for. I was there Wednesday to Sunday, so I was there, what, four nights was it literally only got back about an hour ago, back to Cornwall.
But it is obviously lovely to hang out with our buddies without ponies there, especially when we all met via ponies. But just fab that we've managed to continue such good friendships, to be able to do things like that and celebrate
[00:03:37] Speaker D: each other all together.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: And that is one thing we talk about. Simon and Rosie, I'm sure you. This is something British eventing is probably like one of the things horses has genuinely brought us all together, us three as friends. We've come together through horses, haven't we, Simon? But Rosie, I'm guessing you've learned that from being in charge of British eventing. There is the eventing family, as it were, and the friendships that's formed from it and the love. And if something goes wrong for someone, everyone is there. That is one of the things I loved about it, personally. Have you found that being in charge and being at the helm?
[00:04:13] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, my two dearest oldest friends, Rachel Newsome and Katie Vane, who I still am in contact with today, I started at Pony Club with when we were five. So, you know, so we grew up together. We separated and gone our separate ways, but around the world and all sorts of stuff. So horses are.
And the equestrian stuff. Yeah. It's. And it's funny, isn't it? Because it's quite a difficult community to come into and be trusted within because you're all a bit sort of closed, which is. I think I'm getting there now.
But yeah, some of the stuff that has gone on over the last two years has really, really struck home to me how important the community is and how important all the members of the community find the community, if that makes sense to their lives, not just to their eventing bits, but to their overall lives.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: I think you're so right with that because I found like when I was at school, not that many other kids were into, into horses and ponies and I was pretty obsessed with them all. And so I felt a little bit excluded is probably the wrong word, but I felt a little bit of an outsider in comparison to everybody else. And then going and joining pony club, joining British venting, meeting other kids that had exactly the same mindset as me and that loved their. Loved ponies and loved venting really.
And then I felt really so much more included then within the community and I really latched onto that at the time and it was really helpful to me growing up. So that's a really good point because I don't know about you guys, I don't know what you thought, Tina, when you were younger, but like, like there weren't that many other kids that were into horses and ponies when I was at school.
[00:05:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean I was very lucky that although I didn't have my own horse or pony, a few of my close circle of friends at school did and that enabled me to get more like into it because I was lucky enough to go and ride theirs and share theirs and go to shows and stuff with them. So that was sort of like my step into horses was although I didn't have my own and I wasn't a part of a pony club, I got to be a part of horsey life via some of my school friends. So actually I'm very grateful to them for that. And then I did have quite a big before getting back into horses and being able to have my own and afford my own.
But if I hadn't had those friends at school, I may well have never been even interested or know much about having a horse or a pony.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: And you've said it, haven't you Simon? As well for you coming out as, as being gay and you, you found as well that the, the eventing community and the horse community have been unbelievably accepting, haven't they? There's always been.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Hugely. Yeah. Usually I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but there's a new series on, I think it was on Netflix or the BBC called Tiptoe, and it just talks about how, you know, the LGBTQ community are still not as accepted as everyone thinks that they are.
And it was just kind of.
Honestly, within the equestrian world, the equestrian community, it has never been a problem for me. Literally never been a problem. Like, everyone's always been so welcoming and so, I mean, there's. There's been. I think I could say there's been one person that really wasn't very keen and made me feel really uncomfortable, but they were completely unaware of the fact that they'd done that. It was just. I think that was more them than anything else. But. Yeah, but as a general rule, like the equestrian world and eventing, it's so accepted and it's. Yeah. And I, you know, I take a lot of comfort from that, and it's made me into the person that I am today, which is. Which is cool.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Complete ass. No, I'm joking. I love you. Really?
[00:07:47] Speaker B: What a tryat.
[00:07:50] Speaker A: We love you. Really. See, I've known Tina a long time. What's your background with. With horses and eventing? Obviously you mentioned there, the pony club.
What was your route into. Into horses and riding? And that led you into being basically Simon's boss. I consider you as here now.
[00:08:10] Speaker D: So I grew up on a farm in country Australia, and horses. Bo Peep was my first one.
And we rode the horses because we needed to get sheep in and cattle in. And we were country kids, so we chased sheep and cattle around everywhere. I have two older sisters who were slightly competitive, and we used to race around playing Robin Hood through the timber, which is what you. What you guys would call the forest with its timber and jump. Everything possible.
And then my. So then we had a pony club, but we have pony club. A bit different to you guys over here. We have a week where you go in your camp and you all stay in the basketball. Basketball court at the showground.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: And you ride all week.
[00:08:54] Speaker D: Right. And you start in pig check trip, which is the little kids, and they get that. I don't think I've got let around, but that's the little kids. And then you go.
And then I think at about 6 or 7, you move into the bigger trips. And Rachel, Rachel, Katie and I, we moved on relatively quickly because we were just riding a lot. Right. So we could just balance and stay on and do all that stuff, so.
And then you Got big kids. So 16 is when you finish. But you're in a troop and the troop is really competitive when there's other troops and you do all your training and everything all through the week with all the kids. So you're riding against them with big kids. So we do, we used to do this great thing we had trip drill and you go around and you start off in singles, going all the way around to showdown, like huge. And then you go to doubles and then you go to fours and pairs and stuff and gets crushed in the middle and it'd be burning fun and you'd fall off and, you know, and then at the end of the, on the Saturday, everyone would get dressed up in their finery, winery joddies and a brown jumper and compete and you go, you know, under eights, under tens, under 12s, under 14s, under 16s and under 18s. And then you got points for your troop, so the better you were. What you needed is a whole pile of decent performers all the way through your trip. And so, yeah, you used to get, you know, highest, highest point score at the end of the weekend you'd ride out and get your trophy and all that stuff. And then you'd get selected into the divisional team and then go away into the zone team and then you go away and compete and keep going in your age groups and stuff like that. And then I show jumped and did some eventing and we played my sisters and I played Polar Cross. I was seven when I started playing Polar Cross because my sisters, yeah, I had a horse called Thunder that used to stop dead and he'd go meow and fly off anyhow. So I was the youngest and there was five kids in the town that wanted to play and you need six. So I had to go and play on Thunder. And I used to get fall off and my sisters and my kind compatriots in my team used to bet on what chakra I'd fall off in because I used to fall off in every single game because I was little and they used to bump me and I'd go and fall off. So great fun. But I ended up getting my own back. Actually. I wasn't the bad polycross player. So I ended up whacking the odd big one with the polycross stick.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: So I'm getting the impression that you're hard as nails, Rosie, as well from this.
[00:11:12] Speaker D: Yeah, well, you know, I'm competitive. Let's just say that don't like losing.
[00:11:17] Speaker B: And how did this then branch into you ending up being the CEO of British eventing, like. So why are you here?
[00:11:25] Speaker D: So I've always worked at. My career is sport. I've always been a sports administrator and gone sort of through the ranks of sports administration.
And it's a real. Sports administration's a real skill. It's not like people say, well, you know, you're not running a Fortune 500 company or whatever, or you're not a lawyer or whatever. It's like. But as a sports administrator you've got to be really, really good at quite a lot of different stuff. Stuff. But. And you've also got to know how to bring people along with you on the team. So I've always enjoyed that. Right. So I.
So I did a bunch of different jobs in Australia and then I applied for a job over here. Took over women's rugby in 2002, ended up over here. So I was in charge of women's rugby over here for 2002 to 2013.
Then I moved into the RFU until 2018, left the RFU, set up a management consultancy.
You know, didn't really like that because I had to work on my own all the time and I'm more of a team builder rather than anything else. But you know, like today I've gone from talking about heat and horses and traveling and watering of courses to rights issues with broadcasting and lawyers and HR and strategic planning. So it's a really wide job. And then on the weekend I'll go out to Farley. I think I'm going to Farley and I'll go and pat some horses and cheer some people on and then.
Yeah. So it's a really, really wide remit. I've applied, I applied for this job. I got it on the third time.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: So really, that's interesting.
[00:12:56] Speaker D: I've always promised myself I'd never work in a sport I don't like watching.
Yeah. And I've always been, always horses and stuff have always been really interesting. Right. So I've always been watch racing and I've always watched eventing and showdown ping stuff. It was on and you know, someone was interested.
But you gotta watch a sport that you like because you've gotta watch a lot of it.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: That is so true. That's so interesting that you were. And from a women's rugby perspective to a sport where we compete on even keel. So I can. Tina can go tomorrow and compete against Simon, not only him being a five star competitor, but also Tina being an amateur. So there's two factors there.
How has that been? Because like obviously women's rugby has had such an amazing turnaround. It's been absolutely phenomenal. But it is from that perspective that must have been very interesting for you because it is crazy, isn't it Tina, that tomorrow you could go and compete against Simon when Simon was going around badminton a couple of weeks ago.
[00:13:56] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, I think it's interesting. I think you got to just be careful that in club rugby, which is where a lot of women still play, I mean when I first started there was about seven or eight girls who were playing that were under, under 16 and now there's 25,000 women playing. Right. So but in club rugby you could, you could easily see, you could easily see an England player playing on the wing versus an absolute beginner.
And you know in club rugby that, that happens all the time. Right. Really good players are playing against lots of good players. So it's similar thing. Men and women shouldn't play contact sports against each other. So you wouldn't. And it's a contact sport so you can't compete against each other.
Yeah. So there's that. That's sort of not irrelevant. That's not relevant. But I think, I think it's wonderful when you see, you see some great. I've seen some really lovely. I was at little Downer. There was a little girl who was. It was her first show jumping thing and she was really, really, really, really nervous and she was in tears and dad was having a problem because dad didn't know which way to put the boots on and dad was not horsey at all. And I was standing there and I was being, I was being the show jumping steward for some unknown reason to. Because I needed to experience being a straight jumping steward.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: I remember that.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:12] Speaker D: And Su Lovely Susie Barrow Berry and the Italian chap, Giovanni I they rode over to me and said we'll take her and they put her in between the two of them and they just walked around the warm up area a few times with her having a chat. She came back round ready to go boom. No more tears. They'd just given her some confidence.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: Oh, I'm so hormonal. That's going to make me cry. Tina's going, oh, does it take. Me and Tina are the worst for this. Oh, we just.
[00:15:45] Speaker C: That's just so funny though. I've got a similar experience to be fair. One of my first events of Enzo last year I was so worried when I we'd got a good dressage, we'd gone clear show jumping and then I went to go to cross country and I was so nervous I didn't want to let him down. He's a young horse but with a lot of ability. And I went down there and William Fox Pit was down there and he was the only other one in the warm up and suddenly that just like lifted my.
It didn't make me feel daunted, it actually lifted me because I was like, oh, I'll just follow him over a few warm up jumps and we'll be absolutely fine. And, yeah, huge difference.
But he was, yeah, really lovely and smiley and chatty and it just. Yeah. And if that morning, to that warm up and it had been a nervous other person, that could have backfired completely and affected my nerves more and made me feel less confident, but it lifted my confidence.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, I think having other kind of top, top riders there is so inspiring and it's really. And I find that when all of all the events I go to, when you've got great riders there, it just, I just find it inspiring and being in the same field as them, doing the same thing as them and the focus and all that kind of stuff that it's. I think it's really useful as riders to get us into the right mindset. It's. I think it's something that makes the sport so. The sport so, so special. One of the reasons why I wanted to do it so much when I was younger was because I wanted to be able to go and compete against these big bigwigs. And then eventually it started to get to where I was like, this is really annoying because I want to beat them.
Unless they didn't come.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Unless it's Paul Tapner. Do you want to know my Paul Tapner story?
[00:17:20] Speaker B: Yeah, go on then.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: I might have to do a terrible Australian accent. Rosie, I apologize now. So I am, my husband Gregor, handsome, lovely Gregor is very non horsey. But one of the things I've taught him is how to do studs because it's very useful to have someone else who can do studs. Doesn't half bloody moan about doing studs. It takes him about four days to do one foot. But I was trying to teach him put rug on and off and do studs. And as he was having a go at studs, I cannot remember, I might have been at Smith's lawn or something. We were parked next to Tappers and Tappers came over. He's like, what are you doing? And I was like, what? He's like, never let the wife know you can do studs. You'll be doing them forever. You never let them know you play dumb and you say you can't do a thing and you get the beers in. And I was like, oh, thank you, Paul. Yes, very unhelpful. Thank you. So, yes, he shouted, sorry, Rosie, for the accent, shouted at my husband and told him from now on to deny any knowledge of horses and to feign ignorance on everything. And I was like, right, that's fair enough. And so from then on, my husband was in charge of picnics and beer.
But again, it was just so nice being part next to tapas and him coming over and chatting to Gregor when Gregor didn't know anyone. And, yeah, it is. It is great. And like, on a course walk, what I find is the amount of times I've been on a course walk and I've seen, like, a Tina Cook and I've gone, oh, Tina, what do you think of this? How should I ride this?
How should this go? I think that's when I really like it. Have you ever had that, Tina?
Have you ever walked a course and seen any other big wigs going around and asked any advice or got any advice from the likes of Simi?
[00:18:54] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I was very lucky that Symie actually walked the course with me at Badminton this year. Didn't you, Simi? Me and Meg?
[00:18:59] Speaker B: I did.
[00:19:00] Speaker C: And, yeah, I think it definitely helps because obviously to you guys, I know that you obviously complete younger horses as well, at the lower levels, but to you, when walking a course like that, because it is so much smaller compared to what you were there to be doing at Badminton, it could be easy for you to be blase about it and be like, but you're not. And you give us so much confidence and, like, inspire us to believe in the fact we can do it. And it's not easy. You're not going to make it feel like, well, you should be able to do that because it's easy, but you give us the right, like, way of approaching it without it feeling too daunting.
[00:19:37] Speaker A: Did you know what Simon said about the course on our podcast? Have you listened?
Come on. Is it what I've missed? What did you think?
What did you actually think of the course, Simon?
[00:19:48] Speaker C: Did he declare this before or afterwards that we'd done it?
[00:19:52] Speaker B: This was afterwards. I thought it was massive.
[00:19:54] Speaker C: Well, you did a good job convincing us it was doable.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: Well, no, it was.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: It was.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Don't get me wrong, it was. It was very doable. But it was proper, like, it was proper.
[00:20:04] Speaker D: It was a championship course.
[00:20:06] Speaker C: Yeah, it was definitely the most daunting thing I've walked.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: Yeah, like, Because I was thinking about it like, if I was. Because I've got some horses that are kind of doing 90s and hundreds at the moment. And I was thinking if I wanted to do that with these guys, I'd have to really ride to be able to get around that clear. It was, you know, it was proper. So that's a good on you.
[00:20:24] Speaker C: Yeah, no, it was the way you phrased it all. You made it exciting and like a good challenge rather than you need to be concerned about this because of this. It was like, think about how good that's going to feel once you've done it.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Yeah, good.
[00:20:37] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Your inner monologue was working that day, Simon. Well done.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: It was.
I had a similar thing the first time I did Burley in 2012. I had a really, really busy time. I had like four or five horses in the Young event horse final on the Friday, so I was busy all day and I hadn't walked the course on the Wednesday for whatever reason, I can't remember. And then on the Thursday I had my dressage to focus on and so I hadn't had a chance to walk the course then either. So because I was so useless, I hadn't actually properly walked the course yet. And it was starting to get dark on Friday evening and so I was like. And because I'd done all right. I hadn't won, but I'd done all right. I was in the top 10 in the four year olds and it was so like. And it was like, it was. It wasn't dark. Cause it was like summer, isn't it? But like it was starting to get a little bit like that and I started walking the course and like the Leaf pit was like fence two or three. And I remember kind of running to the start and then thinking, oh my God. And I was in such a flap and in such a panic that I was like, I haven't won the course. No idea what I'm doing. It's my first ever time at Burley and I got to the Leaf pit and Jeanette Breakwell came along with John Bowen, her coach.
And. And they were just kind of. They were walking around, walking the course and I was like, guys, do you
[00:21:52] Speaker D: mind if I join you?
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Please, because I don't know what I'm doing and. Yeah, of course. And so we walked the course together and oh God, she was so brilliant. Like, you know, she was so, so inclusive. Like she didn't know my horse, but she was really, really helpful with the whole thing. And yeah, like, just going back to that Community, the eventing community is such a wonderful community where everyone wants to help everyone and, and it's, and I always feel like it's all of us against the cross country course and then once everyone's back safe and sound, then it's about being competitive. That's kind of like, that's how it is.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: I like that. You need to share that, Rosie, as a line. You're all against the course until it's at the end and then you're against each other until everyone's home safely.
So one of the reasons we have the wonderful Rosie and Tina on the podcast today, I, well, haven't taught for a very long time now as a riding instructor, have taught many people to accomplish their dreams of going around just a cross country course at 80 or move up through the levels and train people. But you can, you can only do so much in an hour.
But one of the things is that idea of preparation. Preparation. What is your phrase, Simon? Prepare to fail or fail to prepare. What's that famous phrase? I'm sure you've said it.
[00:23:12] Speaker B: That is a famous phrase, isn't it?
[00:23:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: I can't remember what it is though, Jenny. I always say it's about dotting your I's and crossing your T's.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: It's a very good one. I'm going to find out anyway. But you can to be able to send people away. Go and do your homework.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: But back in my one isn't there. I can't remember what it is.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: God, no, don't say that.
But be and I like the play on words here have come up with. Be prepared.
That was a good one. Here we go.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: I've got it. Proper planning and preparation prevents piss poor performance.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: There we go. Excellent.
[00:23:47] Speaker C: Bit of a tongue twister.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: I feel like that shouldn't be British eventing's tagline for this though.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: Probably not.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: But be prepared is somewhere that as an instructor like yourself, Simon, like I was back in the day, is something you can now go, do. You know what, guys, I can only do so much. You've got to go and do learning takeaways, go and digest stuff, learn from different people. Rosie, tell me about this wonderful initiative because it isn't just for the amateur, is it? It's for everybody.
[00:24:20] Speaker D: No. So I was sitting on the wall at Aston Laws with Saravani and we were watching the show jumping for one star a year and a half ago and a load of people were falling off and they were just getting knackered and I started to talk to some of the writers And I'm going, sarah, what's going on here?
Because there's too many happening. And anyhow, so Sarah and I were talking about it and she's like, they just don't do enough to get ready, right? I started to talk to her about.
Well, I just started to talk to some of the writers. I'm going, what have you done to get here?
And they were like, oh, you know, because one star, you've got to do a 105 show jumping course. And I'm like, have you done a treble?
Have you done a water jump? And I said, no, not really. I'm like, what?
And I, I played rugby, so I hate the gym with a passion. But I had to go to the rugs. I had to go to the gym because I had to get ready to go to physically ready and mentally ready to play rugby or I wouldn't have been playing, right?
So I was talking about it and I talked about with a bunch of different people, I'm like, there just doesn't seem to be enough ability to be prepared, right? And I know it was my little pun.
We also have a youth council and I was talking to the youth council about how they get ready and how they do stuff and where their background was. And Jago Jackson was telling me about his mum and dad who aren't horse utilities and they had no help when it came to putting in, funnily enough, studs, for example, when to put them in, what to do, how to do it, et cetera. So, and in all my sort of travel around, I see a lot of people, right? And I see a lot of people who are holding onto the horse and grooming or mum or a dad or whatever, or young riders or whatever.
And a lot of these things are really quite technical and a lot of these things you really need to learn, right? But if you haven't started your life in the pony club, you don't know how to tie a safety knot just in case your horse pulls back, right? So there you go, you go and till your horse up on a piece of string with your 700 quid bridle and you wait for the horse to pull back and bang goes your bridle. So there's all these things that. And I.
The amount of times I've wandered around a horse box and gone up to a horse and re tied it and actually taught the person how to do the safety knot here, you just do this. So if you pull that piece of string, it'll come undone if your sports play.
So Anyhow, I just thought, right, we've got to do something about this because eventing is a daunting space to come into. People find it quite daunting. And people that are returning to eventing particularly, and coming from pony club to eventing, or just having a horse and going eventing, it's not easy. There's lots of gear, there's lots of stuff, there's lots of things you got to learn. So we then sort of set about going, okay, we're going to do a be prepared program.
It's got a bit bigger than I thought it was going to in the first little bit, to be frank.
At the moment, we're focusing it on that sort of hundred and below type people because they're 75% of our members, right? Our job as the national governing body is to make sure that people are having loads of fun doing what they want to do and are doing it in the safest environment they can do it in. And they're not daunted when they turn up. Because, you know, no matter how you do it, you drive in, you drive your lorry into the lorry park, you don't know what you're going to expect. You don't know who the people are you need to talk to. You don't know if someone's going to help you. You don't know how to tie your horse up. But they're the people. Exactly. The people we want to come eventing, they are the, the bottom. The other bit is those people that are that sort of one star, they do know a lot of this stuff, but actually, are they ready to go to the next bit? So am I ready to transition from 80 to 90, 90 to 100, 100 to wherever?
And I think there's a lot to. There's still a lot of more resources that we need to do. There's a lot of stuff like what to expect in your first trot up. I mean, you know, I. One of the. One of the girls that was on the youth council, she said to me, yeah, I felt really out of sorts because I turned up the wrong bridle on. I wasn't dressed properly, blah, blah, blah. And I just felt like an idiot.
Now you feel like an idiot when you turn up to sport, sport, you don't turn up again, right?
And the other factor for this, for this sport particularly, is not about just putting two jumpers down or playing a game of cricket or playing a game of football.
This is you've got to be safe, right? And you've got to get. You've got to be ready to go with the right gear on, in the right order out on the cross country course or around the show jumping thing, whatever. And it's all about just breaking down the barriers.
And I also think there's a lot of people out there who think they're very good at what we're doing, but actually get in and have a look at some of the be prepared stuff because it's not just for the, the amateur beginner, it's about how you can reflect on your own performance.
And you know, Simon, I challenge you to not find something on the be prepared thing that you either didn't know or doesn't actually make you go away and think, actually, you know what, I've got to go and work on that, me and my horse or my, or I've got to educate my grooms differently or whatever. There's loads and loads of stuff in there and you know, things like parents, parents find horse sport daunting. They're going to get stood on. They're, you know, they don't know how to, they learn how to ride the drive the lorry because they have to, but what do they do with the horse?
[00:29:33] Speaker B: And then that stresses, you know, it's interesting. So with, so I do quite a lot of teaching now and, and there's a huge, like, I teach quite a lot of young, youngsters and there's a huge proportion of them who are driven by a parent who normally is great crack and very funny and very entertaining but completely unhorsey. And they'll come in and they'll come into the middle and they'll start chatting to me about stuff and say I've got no idea about this. And I actually terrifies me, I've no idea what I'm doing. I just drive and then just hope that they know what they're doing. And, and actually. So is this, this an option for them, Rosie, to like get involved as well?
[00:30:08] Speaker A: Because yeah, like there's a whole section on how to.
[00:30:11] Speaker D: There's a whole section on how to put stuff in. There's a whole section. There's a step, there's going to be some section, but there's some gear sections being built at the moment. Which way do the boots go on?
You know, it's not like it, we all think it's, we all think it's not, it's not, it's not easy.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: It's a real common thing and like the, just the basics of it of like, of how the day actually runs, like when My dad comes to an event, I've been eventing for a very long time and like 30 years and my, and my dad still comes along to an event and I'll do a dressage test and go, so what are we doing now? Cross country? I'm like, no, dad, it's a one day event. You know, we do show jumping next.
And oh, no, I didn't know that. And I'm well, but like, it's just, it was, it's a great thing to have for the parents, definitely, so they, you know, give them a little bit more help.
[00:31:00] Speaker D: People who just don't understand it. There's loads of stuff in there for
[00:31:04] Speaker A: say, for example, you fall off or something happens or you've got an obnoxious child who doesn't want to do their own horse. At the end, the parents just knowing, no, you need to call that horse off. That horse needs to be walked. That horse needs. You need to go and walk your show jumping. I don't care how good you think you are, go and walk your show jumping. Please, young lady.
Reflecting on what I've heard from people, you need to take your time. Like, do you know what I mean? Parents being able to inform their kids to be safe, but also if something does happen, they then know how to care for that horse as well. If something happens to the kid or the horse, something happens while the kids walk in the course or the partners walking the course. There's so, I mean, I could go on and on and on, but there's so much to it, isn't there?
[00:31:44] Speaker D: See, we, my partner's really good sailor and we were in Croatia and I was skippering the boat. Spun the boat round by accident.
We went off the front, right? I then went, I then went and did a skippering course because I knew that if she'd gone off, there would be no way I would have been able to stop the 40 foot boat, get the sails down, turn around and go back and get her.
[00:32:09] Speaker A: Oh my God. Be prepared.
[00:32:11] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:12] Speaker C: It's funny you should say that actually, because a few years ago we had a boat and my husband made me do my boat license. Like, it's not compulsory, you can drive a speedboat here without having one. But again, he was off the front trying to do the anchor one day and we started drifting towards another boat and I was like, I don't really know what to do. And then when you do put it, it shoots forward. So he was like, you're going to do your boat license, it's not safe. The Two of us driving this boat and trying to think it's a fun leisure activity, when actually it's really blinking dangerous.
[00:32:39] Speaker D: Be prepared is also about people having fun.
And don't. It's not. It shouldn't be your sport on the weekends. Shouldn't be as stressful. It's stressful enough getting around the course and the show jumping and remembering your dress side test. Right. Let's not make everything else a stress. Let's help people have fun. Because for me, as an anatomy gummy body, that helps them come back, they go and enter more events and they become a member for longer and da, da, da, da. The cycle keeps going.
[00:33:05] Speaker C: Yeah. Because there's nothing worse than making a silly mistake and having a silly elimination or something like that, when it's not actually anything to do with your physical ability to do with riding, but you may have broke a rule or you may have just done something that means that you then can't go forward to cross country or.
I liked the fact that when I was looking at it the other day, it actually.
Because there's quite a lot of psychology and mindset stuff in there as well, isn't there? And I really liked the fact that when I was looking at it, because I was trying to decide what I wanted my goal to be with Enzo this year and I actually found reading some of the stuff, I was like, yeah, I know that I can do that. And it just installed more belief in myself rather than actually physically taught me that section, that segment, it may be. Be like, well, I. Yeah, actually we can do this because I already know
[00:33:48] Speaker D: that you're checking in on your reflection, you're reflecting and going actually by just reminding yourself what you already can do.
[00:33:56] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: It's a really good.
[00:33:58] Speaker C: It may be going into the next event or the first event, I should say.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: Tina, I hope you don't mind me saying, and you do not stand alone in this because I'm just the same.
You do get quite nervous, don't you? And you can, I would say so
[00:34:14] Speaker C: a lot more previously than as much as I do now. But again, that's from putting the work in.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And then obviously now you're coming out with a new horse. Obviously you've had Banksy for a very long time, so going out with him now is more of a joy and what to expect. But with the young horse again, what has been your like, has there been anything you've forgotten or anything you've done wrong just from your nerves? Because like you say, you know it.
[00:34:38] Speaker C: Well, I had Never done. Because when I first got Banksy, I'd only actually ever done a B. I started at B90.
I'd never actually done an 80 until last year and I learned that in test because I just assumed it would be the same as the 90 because they're called be 91 or be 95.
But the 80 was a different test to the 90 that day and I learned the wrong test. So that was a. Definitely a rookie error of never having done an 80 before.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: That's hilarious.
[00:35:06] Speaker D: You should have got on, be Prepared and clicked on, what do I need to do for an 80? And the first thing would be learn the 80 dressage test.
[00:35:13] Speaker C: Literally that you bop it.
[00:35:17] Speaker A: Did you get kingly?
[00:35:18] Speaker C: I was doing the Gobi 80, so it wasn't on his record that I messed up.
[00:35:21] Speaker A: Did you get. Did they ring the bell and say,
[00:35:23] Speaker D: you should have done that?
[00:35:26] Speaker C: She was like, that's. Oh, ouch, not the right way to go. I was like, yeah, embarrassing.
Very first.
[00:35:33] Speaker B: I love that.
Rosie's like, that's terrible.
[00:35:37] Speaker C: Yeah,
[00:35:40] Speaker A: but even you, Simon, Simon Grieve, you didn't know all the rules the other day, did you, Simon Grieve?
[00:35:46] Speaker B: No, I didn't know the rules. Well, yeah, yeah, I, I should be reading the rules as my bedtime reading, but I don't, which is bad. But, yeah, no, I was on my phone the other day, but this isn't a British eventing rule, it's an FEI rule. I was on my phone the other day and that is not allowed anymore. That's a new thing this year. You can't be on your phone.
[00:36:05] Speaker C: What, whilst on horseback.
[00:36:07] Speaker B: Whilst on horseback you cannot be on
[00:36:08] Speaker A: your phone, which I think is a very good rule. It's one of my.
[00:36:11] Speaker C: Were you just begging someone to check you'd learnt the right test?
[00:36:14] Speaker B: So I was, I was jumping in the burner market warm up and James rang me and, and, and I. And he was. James is my partner, Rosie, and.
And he wasn't there and I was a bit like. And he wouldn't normally ring me when I'm. When I'm kind of like competing until later on. And I thought, well, I better ask that just to get something dodgy. And I was like. I was like, hi, I'm just. And I put it in my hat and carried on.
And. And he. And I was like, are you okay? And he was like, yeah, no, I'm fine. I was just catching up and I was like, oh, I'm actually warming up right now, so I can't tap. He's like, okay, sorry. O.
Then I hung up, put it back in my pocket and carry on and get finished. And then, but then I jumped my round. Then the FBI steward when I came out, she, she, she said, right, just, I'll let you off this once.
[00:37:00] Speaker C: But just, I was going to ask if you got a friendly slap on the wrist or if you got eliminated.
[00:37:03] Speaker B: You, you cannot do that. You, you cannot do that. It's a new rule. You can't do that. And she also didn't see me.
[00:37:10] Speaker D: Reasons and reasons so that you can hear all the officials and stuff, Simon, there are nonsense.
[00:37:16] Speaker B: So this is good, it's a good thing.
[00:37:19] Speaker C: And so that your focus is on your horse and your fellow competitors, not your partner.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: Not my boyfriend.
[00:37:26] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Also play a bit of devil's advocate because I have a bit of a gripe with some of the misinformation that is out there and it can be a bit terrifying as well. But some people online out there doing it and giving advice and it's not always the right advice. You, if you're just starting out at the bottom level, you at 80, you don't need to be galloping or wearing stopwatches or things. So it is nice to have somewhere where the like, say if someone asked you, Tina, you could go, do you know what? If you want to know, go to be prepared. That is for the people, that is the information, the correct information is there. Because sometimes what online isn't always the safest or the right advice or it is for that person at that level. But you might be like, oh my God, I don't do that. What am I doing? Something wrong with the cost.
[00:38:16] Speaker D: We're driven by the industry and the industry wants everyone to buy a 700 pound bridle and a big watch and whatever, whatever. And actually what you need is a really good helmet, really good body protector and some good gear for your horse and then you can come along and then buy the other stuff as you go along if you want to. Don't be driven by the industry, be driven by what you need. And that's really key for people like, for you, Tina, to influence people because the amount of people that spend an enormous amount of money on stuff, they really don't fundamentally need to get started.
It's a, it's a barrier to starting, let alone staying. Yeah.
[00:38:58] Speaker C: God. And I'm like, Simon, I'm not going to say I haven't ever.
[00:39:00] Speaker B: And there needs, there needs to be a bit of a process, I think.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: Sorry, go on, Tina.
[00:39:06] Speaker C: No, you're Okay. I was just like, like Simon. I didn't know. Like I've broken a rule before with that well too, actually, without realizing. I didn't know that you couldn't ride in the dressage arena the night before. I was at Bicton once and there were people schooling that were stabled horses and they were in there. So I went in there. But because I was known, I got eliminated.
So that was one of the things.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: Did you actually get eliminated as well?
[00:39:31] Speaker C: Yeah, because it's a rule. I broke the. I think it's down to the judge's discretion because you could have had pre. You know, you could have had a better score because your horse has already seen that bit of ground. I don't know.
And then also once I lost a shoe whilst show jumping.
Cleared, went clear or had a pole or something. Cleared the finish line.
[00:39:52] Speaker B: Oh, no, you're not.
[00:39:53] Speaker C: And he's very sensitive, isn't he? I jumped straight off to check his foot. But you have to have left the
[00:39:57] Speaker B: ring before you and then walked out. Oh, no.
[00:40:01] Speaker C: But that's health and safety because the other rider was coming in. I could have got in their way or got hurt by another horse and. But that's a very like, valid point and I've learned from that. I wouldn't ever do that again, even if he has lost a shoe. And there's a bit.
But I just think, yeah, we were all going to make mistakes, but you. You learn from them and then like you say, you can make everything safer from sharing about that as well.
[00:40:22] Speaker A: Yeah, like 100%.
What.
[00:40:27] Speaker B: How do you do this? Like how. Where do you find the. Be prepared is on the hub.
[00:40:32] Speaker D: Yeah, it's go through British Inventing. It's on the website.
Google Be prepared.
There's all the links and everything. And then there's a big hub of stuff. Right. And we just keep adding. We're going to be adding stuff we're using. We're going to be doing some more stuff in the winter. We do a bit of a review as to where it. What we're missing. And the idea about it being online is it's repeatable. So you can go in and you could it and you go. You sign up and put your email in like you have to.
[00:41:00] Speaker C: And it's all free of charge, isn't it?
[00:41:02] Speaker D: It's all free.
[00:41:02] Speaker A: Yeah, all free.
[00:41:03] Speaker C: Everyone. You don't even have to be a member, do you?
[00:41:05] Speaker D: Don't have to be a member. The idea is that people, I think as a national governing body, we have a Responsibility for everybody who wants to go eventing, whether you're unaffiliated or whether you Cotswold cup or your pony club or your riding cup or whatever, I don't care.
I want everybody that's in eventing to be having a great time. Hopefully lots of them will love British eventing and they'll come and join us and they'll compete with us and all that sort of stuff. Right. But it is about just making sure that everybody's there. So once you sign up, you can watch things repeat, you can go back and watch things again. You can do little quizzy things. There's little lists, PDF lists that you can download and print them off so you don't forget things in your lorry, you know, like, don't forget your passport, don't forget this, don't forget that there's a list.
[00:41:48] Speaker A: Yeah, passport. A lot of people wouldn't know you needed that if your first time eventing.
[00:41:52] Speaker D: No, and exactly. So there's all that. There's all sorts of different stuff that hopefully it's just help. It's a helpful library of cool things. Right. And then there's some coaching stuff that, you know, Kay Williams and others have done.
[00:42:07] Speaker A: But she's amazing. I love her. I've been taught by her. She's so good at it, making it really fun, but explaining it so you could watch it as Simon. You could watch her exercises, I think, and you get from them. And Tina, me and you could watch them and we'd get from them. She has such a great way of just making it for everyone. I'm just such a big fan of hers.
[00:42:29] Speaker D: Yeah. And then.
[00:42:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:31] Speaker D: And. But you can also, for me, you can go back and watch it again and again and again. And you go out, you can probably go do a bit, go out and practice it on your horse, come back in, go. Actually, how'd that go? And some of this is all about reflective, being reflective. Right. Did I. Did I just go around the cross country course and I'm happy because I'm back or actually, how did I. How did I go around the cross country course? What can I do differently as a rider for my horse? Whether it's do a bit more on their fitness or do a bit more pole work or look at my balance, because it is my balance and its balance, you know, and so. And what I've got to do is to get my balance better, I've got to go and do some core stability work. Right. So that's what I'm going to do in the winter and it's all about that whole picture and the whole picture ends up with happy people, happy horses racing around cross country courses feeling like they are singing Black Beauty song and having a great time and coming back next week.
[00:43:23] Speaker A: I did used to sing. I had the coronation theme tune in my house once. Going around the course. I don't know where, don't know why.
[00:43:29] Speaker D: How do you not want to sing the Black Beauty tune like as you're galloping across the top of the hill?
[00:43:34] Speaker A: Love that.
[00:43:36] Speaker C: I did a training thing once with. Sorry. I did a training thing once with David Dole and he says I always stick to my head that he sings we all live in a yellow submarine as he goes around.
[00:43:47] Speaker D: You see.
[00:43:48] Speaker A: Brilliant there with you. When he did that. That was the eventing show we made. There you go.
[00:43:53] Speaker D: I think that's something we should be.
We need people to email in or however you do it, hashtag, whatever. What song do you sing when you're on the cross country course? Mine is 8 bit jet team.
Thank you.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: I feel like yours is quite fast, Rosie. I feel like David's more of a rhythm. Yeah, yeah. But David, sigh me. I love you Siame. But David is a little bit quicker than you. Maybe you need to start singing Yellow Submarine to get your canter up.
[00:44:17] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:44:17] Speaker B: I mean I remember galloping through some woods and singing Robin Hood riding through the gate.
[00:44:24] Speaker D: Yes.
That's the one that my sisters and I used to sing all the time when we were doing Robin Hood through the.
Through the timber.
[00:44:33] Speaker B: But though Rosie, the problem with that is it's. It's very Robin Hood.
[00:44:37] Speaker C: Robin Hood.
[00:44:39] Speaker B: That's really.
[00:44:40] Speaker C: Simon, you do it down a minute
[00:44:42] Speaker B: marker then it has stuck with me all the way through ever since.
[00:44:45] Speaker D: You can Simon, change it up though. If you have got any musical bone in your body. You can sing it a little bit faster if you wanted.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: Okay, okay. I'll try and do it a bit.
[00:44:54] Speaker D: Try that quicker. Yeah.
[00:44:56] Speaker A: He's quite the singer is our Simon. Yeah. But I do feel like. Let us know, send us an email or the email address and all the details for be prepared are in the episode description or get in touch social media. What song from now on should sign me And I think we need one for Tina as well.
And what song should they be eventing to in their head? I actually am going to very much enjoy this. It could become a feature. We'll have Tina on every week.
[00:45:22] Speaker C: To be fair, when Em and I used to always travel together, the last song that we would put on as we Pulled into a venue to get ourselves psyched up would be that I am giant Stand up on my shoulders
[00:45:33] Speaker D: Tell them what you see that's quite good.
[00:45:35] Speaker A: That's a good one.
[00:45:36] Speaker C: That turned out really loud when I
[00:45:40] Speaker A: used to go out with Laura Collett and we went team chasing. We used to do who Runs the World, Girls.
[00:45:45] Speaker D: Who Runs the World?
[00:45:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that was our one. Sorry, Simi.
[00:45:49] Speaker B: Before I. Before I got on for badminton this year, I played Abracadabra by Lady Gaga.
That was a good one.
[00:45:56] Speaker D: Oh, that's cool.
[00:45:58] Speaker B: Yeah. She's so cool, though. I just. That woman is just amazing. She's absolutely amazing.
[00:46:03] Speaker A: She is. I'm just trying. I can't even think how that goes. I'm so old.
[00:46:06] Speaker B: Abracadabra Abra ulana Abracadabra.
[00:46:11] Speaker C: No, I love Lady Gaga and I don't think I've ever heard that song.
[00:46:15] Speaker B: Oh, mate, you must have. You would have done. You would have done.
[00:46:18] Speaker C: I suppose Shallow's a bit slow, isn't it?
[00:46:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that would be a little bit. That. A little bit. And I don't think talking about Shallow as he's going through a waterfall fence would be the best idea. So. Simon, we have to talk about it. So I. We've. I love the idea of getting lists. I love a bloody list, but I'm too lazy to write them. So having a tickable list for me from being. I think this would be the thing I would use a lot. Simon, how important is it you remember your hat to an event and tell us why you have to have remember your hats for events?
[00:46:48] Speaker B: So I've just been to Royal Ascot. I went there on Saturday and it was for James's best friend's birthday party, and we went in tails and top hats and it was all fabulous. And the biggest problem I had was that I couldn't find a top hat that would fit my head because it is so massive. I've got, like, the biggest head in the entire universe.
And I was saying to the guys in the shop, I was like, the thing. I ride horses for a living. And the one thing that I cannot forget if I'm going competing is my riding hat, because it's. There's no chance I'll ever be able to borrow one off somebody. It's big enough.
It's literally. It's embarrassing.
You're sorry?
[00:47:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:32] Speaker D: You've got a big melon.
[00:47:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I've got massive. I've got this massive extension on the back of my head. It's like.
Did you watch the film Alien?
[00:47:41] Speaker D: No, too Scary for me.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Well, so alien. They're narrow, but then they've got this really long bit out the back. That is me. Or I'm like a flat fish. Really narrow. And then you turn and then these really, really, really wise.
[00:47:55] Speaker D: Actually you just turned your head and you do have a massive head.
[00:47:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a beast. Absolute beast. And everyone always says, oh, it's because you've got so many more brains in there. No, I don't. There's obviously just air there. That's what obviously is.
[00:48:10] Speaker A: You could have like Finding Nemo Dory's song. When you're riding. Keep on swimming. Keep on riding.
[00:48:16] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:48:18] Speaker D: Don't touch the boat. Don't touch the boat.
[00:48:23] Speaker A: So one of the things that I think you are going to bring into this and I think, Tina, you, you and Simon, actually, both of you, I'd love your tips on how you cope with this is. And we get so many questions on how to manage nerves, anxiety and basically how to not cream your brain. Brave pants before you go eventing. That's going to be on there as well, isn't it, Rosie?
[00:48:44] Speaker D: Yeah. So there's loads, there's already loads of stuff on it. There's. We will be doing some more stuff and I think what we're, at the moment, what we're doing is we, we're making sure that we've got really good people doing this stuff. So there's some mental health experts, there's some sports psychologists and things like that. So, so it's. It's good quality content and we, And. But we've got to be careful because as you said before, we're not going to turn this into. It's everybody's opinion, it's got to be science based, it's got to be realistically, it's got to be proper.
Now I'm. But we've. But then we also now need to try, probably soften it a little bit to allow people to see examples of, you know, Rosie Williams gets nervous, vomits, whatever, how, how that. That nervousness manifests themselves. But also what some of the. It's not necessarily what the nervous system is, it's actually what people's coping techniques are and how they can do it. And, you know, some people. I was amazed. Some people find show jumping way more scary than cross country.
[00:49:48] Speaker B: Yeah, Huge, huge percentage of people do.
[00:49:51] Speaker D: I. I thought, that's amazing.
[00:49:53] Speaker A: Oh, I find the dressage more scary.
[00:49:55] Speaker D: I would find dressage just so scary. When I was a kid, it was like, oh, my God, I Don't want to do that. It's only, it's a way for me to get past that bit, to go into that bit.
But obviously you know, you've got to do it, which is fair enough. And it's, it's a key part of the horsey thing. But yeah, where do you get nervous?
[00:50:10] Speaker B: It's great to have that out there because you know, you go, I mean when I was a youngster and I go to these competitions and all my peers were there and they all looked like they had their shit together and they didn't.
No, but I thought they did. Absolutely. But they definitely didn't because it's human. We're all human. We're all allowed to get nervous and we all do get nervous. And yeah, okay, so there are some people that don't get as nervous, but they do. Like I don't care. Anyone who says that they don't is a liar. Like, you know, there's, there is. And, and it's great to know and this is what, this is really good. Everyone's in the same boat and that there are tools to be able to help with that and that you can talk about it as well and you can discuss it with, with your peers and, and, and find a way through to make it better. And this hub is brilliant for that then.
[00:50:58] Speaker A: And one of the other things that
[00:50:59] Speaker D: we're going to do bid some, some work on is what parental nervousness, what the knock on effect of parental nervousness has on their children, right? Because I'm nervous because my little Josie Jones is just about to go around the cross country course. But what my nervousness is impeding on their, their nervousness which is impeding on their ability to make decisions.
[00:51:22] Speaker C: And it's really interesting because my mum didn't come to badminton this year.
[00:51:26] Speaker A: Oh, that's interesting, Tina.
[00:51:28] Speaker D: Interesting. Yeah. But I was watching your mother in a warmup and her daughter turned around to her and said mum, am I ready?
And I went, I just thought I'm gonna have a word with mum in a minute. So the kid goes off, comes back, brilliant, right? Woohoo. Did.
And I just said, look, have you got a minute? So I had a little chat with her. I said, did you know that your daughter needs you to not say yes, darling, I think you're ready.
Your daughter needs to know, darling, that's your decision.
Are you ready?
Because it's your decision, not hurt. It's the child's decision or the rider's decision. It's not, you know, have you checked your have you checked your girth? Have you. Are you comfortable? I. Do you think you're warmed up enough?
[00:52:12] Speaker C: Do you?
[00:52:12] Speaker A: How do you feel?
[00:52:14] Speaker D: Are you ready? Don't take. It's that. It's that the parental nervousness or the. Or the stakeholder nervousness stuff comes into the bit that says, I'm going to try and over prepare them. But actually the person sitting on the horse is the one that's got to be ready and they've got to know in their head that they're ready. So don't take away their decision making.
Teach people how to make their own good, quality decisions and be part of that decision making, but don't make the decision for them.
[00:52:43] Speaker B: In my. When I tell this story before, but on the podcast. But when I did my first five star at po, my mum came out. Um, she'll hate me for saying this, but she. She did just miss the dressage by about two minutes because she was late. Um, and then. And then once we'd done that, but it was great that she was there. And then once we'd done that, we were going to go and walk the cross country course and we got to fence four. We might even move. Fence three was this whacking great big corner.
And.
And I. I said, mom, do you want to come walk the course? She said, oh, yeah, okay, I'll come walk the course. So we got to fence, fence, ball. There's this massive great big corner. And we got to it and. And she was like, do you know what?
I think maybe I'm not gonna walk the course with you because that looks absolutely enormous and really scary. I think I'm gonna go and find a wine bar. You carry on. Cause I don't want to influence your decision making.
[00:53:31] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:53:34] Speaker B: And thank God she didn't, because I think if she'd gone around the rest of it, I think I would have started getting even more nervous. Because she was nervous.
[00:53:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was it?
[00:53:41] Speaker B: And I didn't need any help with that.
[00:53:44] Speaker A: Stephen goes back to you walking it with Tina. Imagine if, Tina, if he'd have said to you, oh, bloody hell, Tina, this Corner's massive for 100 like, or a 90 like, how the hell would that make you feel?
Literally.
[00:53:56] Speaker D: But the other thing is sometimes, sometimes people aren't knowledgeable enough to have an opinion. You're better off to go with a. We've got regional coaches and stuff and people that are out there that are walking courses all the time and offering course walks with people.
You're better off doing that probably than you are giving, getting, getting half, half decent experience or half decent advice from someone who's probably never ridden around across country course.
[00:54:26] Speaker B: And that's the beauty of this sport again. And I think like somebody will always
[00:54:30] Speaker D: help you that knows what they're doing.
[00:54:32] Speaker B: Social media does get a really bad rap rep these days in lots of ways. But there are so many bits of it that are so fantastic. You know, like I've had it before where I've had when I've had people that I don't know at all and they've. And they've messaged I'm at this event and I've seen that you're entered as well. Would you mind walking the course with me? And if I can, I absolutely will. And I'd say, well, so I'm going to be walking at this time. If you want to come along then you can. And a couple of times they've come along and joined me and you know, and most riders, well, in fact probably I would say 95% of riders, if you did approach them and ask them whether you could walk the course with them, they absolutely would. And that is what's so wonderful about this sport. Everyone is prepared to help each other. Be prepared to help each other.
[00:55:10] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:55:11] Speaker A: Also think that is the same with you, Tina. Like if I was at an event and I was having a bit of a moment, I know that I could go. Even if I didn't know you personally, like I do, I could go over to you going, do you think it's all right, like. And I know how much confidence you would give someone in who because you've been there, you felt it. Do you know what I mean? You must get there.
[00:55:28] Speaker C: That's one of the things I think like badminton, obviously a big one, but also like Bicton especially the three day is one of the fun things is going and walking it as a big group.
Because I find like one, you hear different people's opinions and looks and views on how to tackle things. But also I find if I'm walking it with somebody that maybe is a bit more nervous by telling them how you would do it or how you've been taught to do it, then empowers you to believe, yes, I do know what I'm doing. And it makes you feel more confident going out. Because if you feel it yourself and you know that you've been able to give good advice to somebody else, then it again installs the self belief in knowing that you are capable of doing it as well.
[00:56:05] Speaker A: Do you think your nerves in the past have impacted your performance?
[00:56:09] Speaker C: Oh, 100%, definitely.
[00:56:11] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:56:12] Speaker A: And what do you do now?
And obviously there's going to be so much on be prepared that we can learn. But is there anything that you do? Have you got any techniques that help you before when you next go out on Enzo, is there anything you do? Do you get hypnotized like Simon hypnotized?
[00:56:28] Speaker C: But I have had some one on one sessions with and psychotherapist and I think just often my husband always says to me as well, because I'm a bit of a worrywart in day to day life with regards to things. Often he says to me, you worry about what you're gonna worry about next. But actually having those sessions that I had helped me understand just more about my brain, how my brain works and how to process feelings. Not necessarily remotely in equestrian side of it, just in day to day life.
And that has massive, massively impacted my riding.
So it wouldn't have actually been anything physically to do with riding that we've been talking about or discussing or working on. But then the belief in understanding my thoughts and feelings has impacted my riding massively, I would say. I mean, I was once told by an instructor that my dressage would never be good enough to qualify for badminton.
And then my clever little boy and me have managed to qualify three out of the last four years.
[00:57:30] Speaker A: So I hope you've went to them.
[00:57:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:57:34] Speaker D: I hope you're not using them still.
[00:57:37] Speaker C: No, but yeah, it's amazing what your mind can do, isn't it? Once you've got the right mindset, lots more things become possible and enjoyable.
[00:57:49] Speaker B: More enjoyable. You don't always like, not every trainer gels with every rider and so don't feel like you have to go and bat on with the same person all the time. And this is again, this is a great tool that we've got here with the. Be prepared that you can get advice from different avenues from different people.
[00:58:06] Speaker C: And
[00:58:08] Speaker B: you know, and I think that's really important to not just kind of like, you know, there's got to be
[00:58:13] Speaker D: more than one voice in your.
[00:58:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:16] Speaker B: But then equally it's really important to make sure that you don't end up getting advice from loads of different directions because then it ends up getting confusing. You do still need to have your, have your team, have your, have your people. But, but yeah, but don't be afraid to ask advice from other directions as well.
[00:58:32] Speaker C: What I really loved about it when I was looking at it is how it's really easy to navigate but also that you've got the different options. Like, I'm quite a visual learner, so watching the videos helps me more than reading an article. I quite often switch off when I'm reading something and scan, read and then have I actually taken any of that in. So to learn a dressage test, for instance, I want to watch somebody do it as opposed to read the sheet.
So I love that you've got the option of lots. Lots of the educational stuff is videos, but also there's written articles for other people that maybe process and gain information.
[00:59:06] Speaker D: Any good training and education thing has got to take into consideration learning styles and. And a load of people learn really, really differently. So I'm a visual learner and I go away and practice it where if you tried to talk to me for hours or get me to write it down. No.
So, yeah, I mean, the guys have done a great job in the preparation of the planning and we've really been thoughtful about the types of information we've tried to use different learning styles on. But that's, you know, that's coaching, right? That's just good quality coaching.
[00:59:39] Speaker A: I think for me as well is we spend so much time and money on the horses, quite rightly because they are bloody wonderful.
But that bit of money left behind that probably doesn't exist. To have a coach coach you mentally is not a position I certainly wouldn't be in. So having this for me, I mean, I might even. I'm not even eventing, but I might go and use some of the mindset tools that come up for me just in general day when I'm just gonna go and ride some of my friends, youngsters, do you know what I mean? Like, I just think it, you're putting it out there to people who might go, oh, no, I can't do that. I don't have the funds for that. All my money's going on like Thunder's latest vet bill. But actually this is free and you can, you can spend some time on yourself and that's okay as well. It's okay to do stuff for you.
[01:00:24] Speaker B: It's important to do stuff for you.
[01:00:26] Speaker D: I reckon it's really amazing how you eventing people, horse people in the UK particularly talk about the horse a lot more than you ever talk about the person. When somebody says, how did it go?
[01:00:37] Speaker A: People will.
[01:00:37] Speaker D: When, when you interview someone, they go, oh, yeah, he was amazing. And I'm thinking, well, what about you? What did you do? You, you did have the steering wheel and you were the person that was making some of the decisions. And yes, the horse is amazing, but what are you doing for you to make your performance, you and your horse's performance better?
[01:00:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:00:56] Speaker D: And I don't mean better as in five star. I just mean more successful, having more fun, maybe getting more fun.
[01:01:03] Speaker C: Do you know that as well that I take away from badminton this year we did the hundred, where we did the 90 two years ago and the 100 this year. And I had quite a lot of people say to me afterwards, because I didn't go clear cross country, I went clear show jumping, but not cross country. But so many people were expecting me to be disappointed or, like, unhappy with the result. Whereas actually, I came away from that so proud that I had the determination to carry on and complete. Like, normally I had to stop quite early on. I had to stop at fence four. But actually I was like, that made me like, no, we can actually do this. And we are getting across that finish line. And the fact that I did that, I think has given me even more confidence in my ability because I didn't quit and go, we can't do it.
Yeah.
[01:01:49] Speaker A: Oh, we're very proud of you, Tina.
[01:01:52] Speaker C: Thanks.
[01:01:54] Speaker A: So we have been going for an hour. And, Rosie, while I've got the CEO of British Eventing on here, I've got a couple of other things because it would be remiss of me to not answer the criers of our lovely listeners, because they are wonderful, our listeners. They're very, very funny and they take the mick out of us a lot. But they also have entrusted us to find out some stuff for them. But just one of the things we've spoken about before on the podcast, I know you guys are doing a lot for kind of ladies like myself who are going a little bit nuts at the moment and have to slap on the old estrogen patch.
I don't know, Tina, are you. Are you getting to that point in your life as well where you just feel like your hormones are all over the place and crying a little bit more than you should, But I know Bea have been doing a lot about this and, and, and one of the questions I actually had for you was because I haven't invented for a long time now, do you still have to wear cream jumpers if you've got your period? I'm. I just. This is one of the things I've wanted to ask someone, and I was like, who the hell do I ask? So I was like, rosie, yeah.
[01:02:55] Speaker D: No, no, you don't. And it doesn't. You don't have to just have Your period to not do it. Like so many women's sports are moving away from white shorts, white skirts, white everything. But it's also just not about your period or menopause or whatever. It's just about wearing something that is more appropriate. And yes, we have. You have read the rulebook. There's different colors that you can wear.
[01:03:16] Speaker A: Yeah, because since being on the estrogen, my period can come at any point in time when I've changed the levels of it, it's. It's unexpected these days, what's happening. So for me, that would be quite a relief.
[01:03:29] Speaker D: We're trying to break the barriers down so that that's not a worry. Because I actually don't want you worrying about that when you're about to go out on a cross country course. I want you to be worrying about going out on the cross country course. You know, focus on what you can focus on.
[01:03:43] Speaker A: And also for someone like you, Simon,
[01:03:46] Speaker D: obviously it is period, but obviously has other things.
[01:03:49] Speaker A: Well, he. You don't know with Simon, but if you saw one of your clients not wearing the correct color but what you might have deemed to be the correct color beaches, and you run over and go, no, you're wearing the wrong job post. If you didn't know that that was a rule. Do you know what I mean?
I think, I don't think it's just the women who need to know about it as well. Because you could panic a rider by going, oh, you're not in beige breeches. What are the you doing? Do you know what I mean? Which could then panic someone before they're about to go down a center line.
[01:04:16] Speaker D: Also, don't buy like, have a look at the rules. And if you can only afford two pairs of joties, buy the one that you can. One that's gonna maybe do both. You can wear in the yard and you can wear to compete.
Cut down the cost.
[01:04:30] Speaker A: I like that. Rosie, you're singing from my hymn sheet.
And then one of the other things I needed to get an answer to we've spoken about on this podcast before.
Tina is probably a bit like me and likes to talk to her ponies
[01:04:43] Speaker C: a lot.
[01:04:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
Talking British dressage have changed some of the rulings that you are now allowed to not. I don't think it's a FEI or international level yet, but at certain levels you're allowed to have a little bit of a conflab quietly with your horses.
And then we got a barrage of people going, oh, British eventing haven't changed their rules yet. They should Stay in line. They should do this.
There is a lot. Well, there's a lot of opinions out there. Can I ask, is it happening? Has it happened?
[01:05:13] Speaker D: What are you using voice commands? We're talking about.
[01:05:16] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:05:17] Speaker D: Yeah. So there's a difference between dressage and us. We have all of our dressage arenas relatively close together, all outside.
And you don't sort of have that singular dressage arena where people are. So the other people next door to you can't hear because there isn't anybody next door to you.
We are. We've got a be light program that we've just announced which you can use your voice as much as you like.
But that, that's the be light classes. We've just got to be conscious about the other people that are around you while doing your dressage test. And that's. We're not ready to do it yet. And it's really interesting because dressage did it, but they had lots of time to think about it.
[01:05:56] Speaker B: Right.
[01:05:56] Speaker D: We, we just. They did it. We don't necessarily just follow what they do because it may not, may or may not be right for our event.
But we'll look at it when we need to look at it and see what happens. I just, just gotta be careful about where you are. Yeah.
[01:06:12] Speaker B: Just give me. This gives me a little flashback. I remember being a British show jumping show once and I was. I think I was doing the British novice. And so there are lots of young horses around and there was a. A lady there who shall remain nameless. But she.
There were. There's a couple of. Well, there's one girl especially who was on, obviously on quite a young one, but it was quite backwards. So she just spent her entire time clicking at it. She was like.
And this other girl was gradually getting more and more irate because I think the horse that she was on was really sharp and really tricky and she just kept clicking and clicking and eventually after about five minutes, she just turned around.
[01:06:48] Speaker A: She's like, can you just stop clicking?
[01:06:50] Speaker B: This girl, like literally like that. They didn't know each other at all.
[01:06:56] Speaker A: Can you stop clicking?
[01:06:57] Speaker B: Because I'm gonna get decked any second so I can see where you're coming from there. Rosie.
[01:07:02] Speaker C: If somebody was saying whoa all the time in the next arena.
[01:07:04] Speaker A: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why have I lost invention?
Well, Simon has exited his arena before and ended up in piggy marches, so we need to look at that as well.
[01:07:14] Speaker B: Yeah, that was not fun. I even got mentioned in Horse and Hound for that when Piggy won her section while I was getting eliminated despite
[01:07:22] Speaker A: Simon entering her arena.
[01:07:25] Speaker C: Simon, at least we've both been eliminated for leaving the arena in dressage. My first ever one day event, I got eliminated in dressage for leaving the arena. Naughty. Banksy.
[01:07:33] Speaker B: All the best people have been eliminated in dressage.
[01:07:35] Speaker C: Dressage, yeah.
[01:07:38] Speaker D: See, I think that's really interesting. It's. We are, we like to rule ourselves out of participation, promotion.
You know, the fact that you horse stepped out of the dressage arena, is that going to be a safety issue?
Okay. The rules and rules and I understand that and please don't email in to tell me how, but I'm very much focused. I don't want someone to put their horse on a lorry, drive two hours, pay 150 quid to go in and the only thing they get to do is trot around in 10 meter circle and then they're thrown out of the competition.
It's not a safety issue, it's not the Olympics. Right. And it's not an FEI class and it's not a qualification, it's not an MER and all that sort of stuff.
We've got to be more participation based and we've done a lot of that this year with the show jumping particularly.
So if you have a technical issue, that is you miss a fence or you turn tail or you go a little bit for the bell, whatever, the steward can make the decision that the person is safe enough to go on the cross country course. And it happened actually, Eland Lodge last year. There was a lady who Lindy Best, allowed to keep going through the competition. And the lady who just when she finished across country, Lindy Best, is tiny and she jumped off a horse and picked her up because she was so excited. The fact that she didn't just get thrown out of the competition, sent home in her lorry feeling rubbish because she'd forgotten something. I can't remember what she actually did, but she'd forgotten something in the show jumping and she was allowed to go cross country.
[01:09:03] Speaker A: She came back and speaking of dressage, I'm going to ask Rosie. I've had a lot of messages.
British recently, we've just had the first UK bridal less dressage and show jumping competition and I've had quite a few people, I feel like this is a leap, but quite a few people have asked when do we think eventing are going to follow suit?
And I feel like I've got to ask it. So I feel like I should ask it in fact, because it is something that I feel like if you don't event. Maybe that's an obvious question to ask if you've never done it.
[01:09:41] Speaker D: I think I can probably categorically say not while I'm the CEO, but only because. Only because. And there's a reason.
Because if you're show jumping and you're dressaging and you're in an arena, you and your horse have a control mechanism outside of the bridle. Right. Because there's a wall and you're not going to get out.
In eventing, when you're out on a cross country course, there's a piece of string that keeps you and your horse away from taken off down there or taking off over there.
We make so much effort to make our sport safe. I think riderless cross country would be a step way too far at this point until somebody could convince me otherwise.
[01:10:25] Speaker A: I think as well, isn't it? At the moment we're all learning about it and I think there are things. There's a step before the bridal less of safe riding, which is something you guys do a lot of. And monitoring how people ride and how well they ride. And what I think a lot of people aren't realizing is, is. And, and I have to say that lovely Lynn, who was the lady who rode the Grand Prix and the Bridalist competition, she was like, my horse was trained with a bridle. I didn't just suddenly get to Grand Prix without a bridle. And I think there, there's a lot of understanding that needs to be going on before it's not like, like these horses went this level and jumped a meter 20 or meter 30 without bridles in the first place. So there's so many steps before it can even become a conversation, I think.
[01:11:09] Speaker D: And for me it's like particular. I mean just. And I'm not, I wasn't being flippant before. It is not something that I think that we could do safely in the current environment that we're in. It's just not out in a very large field. Right.
[01:11:24] Speaker C: Yeah. To me it's quite scary with a
[01:11:27] Speaker D: whole pot of other horses going around and things going on and stuff.
[01:11:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:11:31] Speaker B: And you, but you, but you do have like the. So the people that were doing that show, that, that competition, you have these elite people that obviously are very, very good at that kind of thing and they also have a fantastic relationship with their horse and, and potentially you could have that and it could work really well going cross country. I, I don't know. I've never done it. So I, I'm just kind of surmising here, but that's a very, very, very small percentage of people.
And there were real certain criteria that they had to fulfill in order to be able to compete at that competition, weren't there Jenny?
[01:12:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:12:07] Speaker B: And I think, you know, if we were going to do it in eventing, I mean the criteria that you'd have to fulfill would be a never ending list, wouldn't it?
[01:12:16] Speaker D: The criteria you have to fit would probably have a bridal on.
[01:12:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And what I found, what I did find interesting is everybody had to send a video of themselves to prove their cap, their capabilities before they could compete.
And I. And apparently someone's emailed in and said and I don't know the answer to this but in apparently show jumping in France, you have to prove your ability before you're allowed to compete.
I don't know if there's. We can learn things from things along down the road in the future of assessing riders ability and making it better for the horse. If there was a kind of standard that horses and riders had to adhere to to be able to.
[01:12:53] Speaker B: It's the same in Germany though, isn't it? You have to have a. Almost have a license to be able to compete.
[01:12:58] Speaker A: Ye, yeah, yeah.
[01:13:00] Speaker D: So have a licensing system that will allow them to compete at a certain level. We have a similar system, inverted commas because it's the qualification process.
But you don't have to have a license to be able. It's the combination, it's the combination of the horse and the rider in terms of qualification.
[01:13:19] Speaker A: But yeah, I just think, I think as long as everyone's open to learning from everybody, that's for me.
[01:13:26] Speaker D: Yeah, it's not like we're not learning. Sometimes you just have to be able to say actually that's not for us.
It's a good thing for people to do and good on you and that's great.
It's probably absolutely fine in certain environments with lots of regulation and governance around it, but I don't think it's an eventing thing in the short term.
[01:13:48] Speaker A: Yeah, right. It has been an hour and 15 minutes. Rosie and Tina, there is a tradition on this podcast to ask what has annoyed you this week. Most podcasts are all about being Zen and being at one with the world. This is get your anger out, get rid of it doesn't have to be horsey. What's annoyed you? Who's got your back up? Ben keeps having a go at cyclists, our other co hosts and is getting quite a lot of flack online and it's endlessly entertaining.
[01:14:13] Speaker C: I haven't had much to annoy me, but I'm happily happy to say something this morning that actually annoyed me.
[01:14:17] Speaker A: Do you know, I'm looking forward to this already.
[01:14:20] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, it is actually. It is horsey. But that's because we're back back to a bit of normality after the lovely five days away when nothing annoyed me apart from being a little bit poorly the first morning. But we.
This morning I picked Enzo up and whilst I was there, I tried something that I've been meaning to change for quite a while. Basically ever since having Enzo.
And I am a creature of habit, I don't like change.
I very much understand the importance of having different things for different horses. Sorry if this sounds a bit cryptic, but I'm annoyed at myself now for not doing this change sooner because when I first got Enzo, I was advised that my saddle is okay on him.
I have been trying to different a slightly different fit. Obviously he was quite young, so I.
And again, I've read a bit on the be prepared hub about saddle fit and saddles which was helped informed my decision for this morning.
But yeah, I'm just annoyed that I didn't make this change sooner because this morning I found a much better fitting saddle for my young horse and the difference in sitting on his back and jumping a jump just feels phenomenal. And I wish that I'd discovered that and not been such a creature of habit and been scared of change 18 months ago. And that's a long time. Like he's thankfully nothing like Banksy and that Banksy will let you know straight away if he's unhappy with something.
[01:15:57] Speaker B: And he's really sensitive, isn't he, to saddle change.
[01:16:00] Speaker C: So sensitive. Which is why I've been scared and not wanting to change away from what I'm used to.
But I'm very annoyed at myself now, having the feel that I felt on this on Enzo this morning and knowing how much more imbalance and confident and competent I could have felt on him with this being much more right for us is amazing. And I just wish I'd done it sooner and been braver and not just been a creature of habit.
[01:16:25] Speaker A: So you're annoyed at yourself.
[01:16:26] Speaker C: It's me I'm annoyed at. Yeah.
Is that. Has anybody ever been annoyed at themselves?
[01:16:32] Speaker A: All the time. Daily moment I wake up, I do.
[01:16:34] Speaker C: Well, yeah, but I mean on your podcast, I bet most of your podcast ones are they're annoyed at somebody else.
[01:16:42] Speaker A: Rosie, what have you been annoyed at?
[01:16:45] Speaker D: I'm training to do a Swimming marathon. Well, not marathon. Six and a half K swim. And I was doing four Ks the other day in the buck at Buckland Lake and this one bloke kept swimming crooked and swimming over the top of me and at one point I had swim rage. So I grabbed hold of his ankle, pulled him back and said, because, you know, like, you're trying to swim a long way, so you try to swim straight and then straight and then straight and straight and straight. Made a big square, just kept. Did it twice and on the second
[01:17:18] Speaker B: time, he was going to get it.
[01:17:21] Speaker D: He was going to get it.
[01:17:21] Speaker A: He got it.
[01:17:22] Speaker B: I'll tell you what, you don't mess with Rosie Williams.
[01:17:24] Speaker D: I'm a real softie, to be honest,
[01:17:26] Speaker A: but, you know, come on, mate, I'm
[01:17:31] Speaker D: trying to get my training in. I don't need you to swim over the top of me twice.
[01:17:34] Speaker A: That would anger me, to be honest as well.
[01:17:36] Speaker B: Good on you. Go on, Jenny.
[01:17:38] Speaker A: Do you know what the only thing I'm annoyed about is?
I'm moving house at the moment. Isn't it just bloody stressful? And every time I pack something or tidy something, my kids then unpack it or move it or. It's like brushing my teeth with Oreo biscuits. It's just. Yeah, that. It's just stress. It's fair.
[01:17:57] Speaker D: Leave it all in boxes and then just only unpack it when you need it.
[01:18:01] Speaker A: Is that you talking about my children or my stuff?
[01:18:06] Speaker D: I'll let you answer that question.
[01:18:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's my style of parenting there, Rosie.
[01:18:10] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:18:11] Speaker A: So that is stressing me out beyond belief. And the most annoying thing is it doesn't matter how many rolls of packing tape I have, I can never bloody find them. I found them in the toilet the other day. I was like, what the hell did I do leaving them in the toilet? I just cannot. I'm losing my mind.
[01:18:25] Speaker B: Isn't moving house supposed to be the most stressful thing you can do in your life? Pretty much.
[01:18:29] Speaker D: No.
[01:18:30] Speaker A: Recording podcasts with you, Simon Green on a weekly basis. No, I'm joking.
[01:18:33] Speaker B: I'm sure. I'm sure it's somewhere it states that it's the most stressful thing.
[01:18:37] Speaker A: I heard it was marriage, getting married, moving house and getting divorced. Those were the three most stressful things.
[01:18:43] Speaker C: Anyway.
[01:18:43] Speaker A: Yeah, that's annoyed me, not knowing where there's not enough estrogen in the world that can help me find my packing tape. Put it that way, Simi. What's annoyed you, my love?
[01:18:55] Speaker C: So.
[01:18:56] Speaker B: So before the. The Hendo, I went out a couple because I had to leave early. So I was only for two days and it was in Corfu, and I was like, I'm not traveling. I'm not traveling all the way out to Corfu just for two days. So I decided to go a couple of days early and I had a really lovely time completely on my own. And I stayed in this really lovely hotel, and they had some nice sun loungers, some. A couple of really nice pools right by the sea. It was fab. I had such a lovely time.
I really miss James, but it was really nice having. Spending some time with myself anyway, so. And I really enjoy people watching.
And so I was kind of on my. The double salounes with the one on my own. And there was this. And I. What I noticed was how horrible couples are to each other.
[01:19:38] Speaker D: Aw.
[01:19:39] Speaker B: Like, there was, like, there was one.
I was kind of sat directly next to this couple, relatively young. Like, they must have been mid-20s, maybe early 20s. And the girl was very kind of, like, forthright about everything. And the lad was trying really, really hard.
And he.
She was like, can you. Can you give me my phone? So he. He went to hand her his phone. So he went to hand her her own phone, and she put her hand out to get it at the same time and knocked it and broke a nail. And she was like, you did that on purpose. And he was like. And I was thinking to myself, how the hell did he do that on purpose? Like, who breaks someone's nail like that?
And she just wouldn't let it go. And she got to the point where I nearly said something. I was like, love, honestly, he really didn't mean to do that, love.
[01:20:25] Speaker C: Thanks for a good day. Enjoy yourselves.
[01:20:27] Speaker B: Yeah, love, should we just calm down?
[01:20:31] Speaker A: Rocking up to them in your back, speaking.
[01:20:33] Speaker B: I was like, come on, guys, we're on holiday. Let's be nice to each other. Chill out.
[01:20:39] Speaker A: Aw. Simi. Always thinking about others.
Right, you beautiful people.
Rosie, thank you very much for coming on the stage. Thanks for having me back on very busy schedule. And yes, thank you for everything you're doing with British venting and.
And be prepared.
And Tina Wallace, I sent Simon a message saying, I've known you a very long time now.
You are looking at the absolutely glorious at the moment, my love.
Those pictures of you.
I know that you've had some life changes recently and I'm sure we'll get you on again to talk about some stuff, but I've honestly, you look so happy and wonderful and beautiful and I
[01:21:20] Speaker B: just want to say absolutely glowing.
[01:21:22] Speaker A: Glowing, Glowing. Simon, And I had a little side chat and I was like, bloody hell, she looks amazing. So thank you. It's just lovely.
[01:21:30] Speaker B: There was one moment when we, when we were on the road with the railings backing onto the sea and Tina was just sat there to kind of like leaning against the railing, kind of on the railing. I was just like, oh, she looks hot, man. Hot.
I don't know. Temperature.
[01:21:46] Speaker C: Aw, thanks.
[01:21:48] Speaker A: And thank you for coming on the podcast. Will you come on again?
[01:21:51] Speaker C: 100%. Yeah. Keen.
[01:21:52] Speaker A: Excellent, excellent.
[01:21:54] Speaker C: You know I love to talk,
[01:21:57] Speaker A: but, Rosie, by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. That was the quote I was asking.
[01:22:05] Speaker C: That's rather than a piss poor performance, that is it.
[01:22:12] Speaker A: Oh, and the other one, the will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win.
[01:22:19] Speaker D: Exactly.
[01:22:20] Speaker A: Look at that.
So please do go and check out be prepare for British eventing, guys. There's just so much on there that will make your horse have a happier life and then you will be inspired to get out there and go eventing. Because as an event to myself, well past just this one thing I am missing from my life here in Canada.
I've had to go and hike some stupid mountains to make up for it, but I really miss it. I miss that buzz. I miss cheering as I gallop through the water and the camaraderie and the well deserved glass of wine at the end of the day and just being in the lorry park and everyone chatting and. Yeah, it is. And. And everybody in eventing wants you to succeed. I know there is is a competition, but that is so secondary for me, I think, isn't it? Everyone just wants to have a good time and the competition element is in secondary. It's about having fun and loving it. And I hope we can, through this podcast, maybe inspire people to just go and have a go. And there's so many different membership options we haven't even touched on now, Rosie, which is so great for people getting into it.
[01:23:28] Speaker D: Cool. We love it and it's a fabulous
[01:23:31] Speaker C: community to be a part of.
[01:23:33] Speaker B: It really is. It really is.
[01:23:35] Speaker A: And Rosie, good luck with your swim.
[01:23:37] Speaker D: Thanks.
[01:23:39] Speaker A: Let us know how you get on.
[01:23:40] Speaker D: It's called the Boomerang.
It's called a what? It's called the Boomerang.
[01:23:44] Speaker A: The Boomerang.
[01:23:45] Speaker D: Bertham Boomerang. It's six and a half Ks and I'm hoping I make it sounds awful.
[01:23:53] Speaker A: It's okay.
[01:23:53] Speaker D: I'll be elbowing people out of the way, don't you worry.
[01:23:57] Speaker B: Or grabbing them by the ankle and yanking them out the way.
[01:23:59] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I. Tina, I'm gonna say, all that's left to say to you is shut up and ride and say to you shut up and swim. Thank you very much, guys, for being on the podcast.