We're pleased to confirm that Childeric will be sponsoring the Dressage Ireland National Championships as part of our continued expansion into Ireland.

Elliott Reeves will be on-site during the Championships and is looking forward to meeting a number of new faces.

Marguerite Kavanagh commented, "as Chairperson of Dressage Ireland I ma delighted to have Childeric on board as one of our main sponsors of the 2021 National Dressage Championships.

The team at Childeric possess a great understanding of the harmony required between horse and rider and always aim to provide the best saddle fit possible for the comfort of both horse and rider.

Riders and owners invest a lot of time and effort into their Dressage horses and always put their horses first . Saddlery plays an important part in the way of going of the Dressage horse and in the riders position. With this in mind Dressage riders are always looking to improve their competitiveness and look to changes in their tack as a way of doing that ."

We're delighted to welcome a new face to #teamchilderic in the form of Elliott Reeves.

​Elliott is a our newest edition to the Childeric team as the Showjumping specialist. Elliott will be covering the whole of the UK and Ireland for jump saddles. With his wealth of knowledge and experience in the sport, he will be able to deliver a bespoke and trustworthy service to both horse and rider. 

Recently we were excited to welcome Michelle back to the Childeric dream team, and now we're sad wave George goodbye as she takes a step back to concentrate on her horses more.  We've therefore had a little shuffle with areas - Tricia will be the point of contact for the South West, Midlands and Ireland, Michelle the South and South East and Helen reigns supreme in the North and Scotland.

How often have you thought when you are training or even warming up at a show and think 'blimey, I think I’ve got this nailed! If I can get it like this in my test then we are flying!' And then you go in for said test, and well…. it doesn't quite work out like that?! 

Our Brand Ambassador, International Dressage Rider Becky Moody shares her top tips for success after the bell goes.. 

As our customers already know, I am a stickler for excellent customer service (poor customer service drives me mad in my personal life, let alone allowing it to feature within my business!). In fact, we have just taken on another fantastic person to join our Team (official news coming soon on that big announcement) because I don't ever want our customers waiting too long to get an appointment.

Most people are pretty sensible about the logistics of coordinating our visits to you all and understand that to get to where you live we may have to strategically plan our journey with visits along the way and coordinate other customer visits within your area. We endeavour to organise these visits regularly, because for us, all our customers matter.

In this training feature, our Ambassador, Dressage Rider Becky Moody shares the scales of training.
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The scales of training are like the building blocks of dressage training, they are a really useful checklist to use, especially if you are training a lot on your own. 
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The scales are: rhythm, suppleness, contact, impulsion, straightness and collection, and throughout them all you also need balance. It's not as simple as working on one and then progressing to the next - they are often interlinked, but they do help to give you focus and direction in your training.

Some horses naturally rush fences, whilst others can develop bad habits as the season progresses, so how do you nip the problem in the bud or correct seasoned old habits?

We asked our Ambassador Gemma Tattersall for her training tips ahead of the season.
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“This is a great exercise to help horses rushing between fences. The placing poles teach the horse to remain in the same rhythm throughout a combination or line of fences. You can use canter poles before and after a fence, so they don’t rush in to the jump or away from it. This in turn should lead to the horse being able to jump a whole course in a lovely rhythm. This exercise can be modified very easily to the level of horse and rider.

You know those signs that you occasionally see in pubs behind the bar that says 'Please do not ask for credit, as refusal may offend' I often feel the same way about sponsored rider enquiries! We're always polite to anyone approaching, however the 'copy and paste' mentality that we see so often is quite wearing. So, I thought I'd add a little clarity to the way we work with riders and my beliefs as to what sponsored riders mean to our brand.