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.

We caught up with our fabulous Ambassador and Dressage Rider Becky Moody for a five minute catch-up on her loves, likes and David Tennant…

If you hadn’t been a rider which career path would you have taken?
- This is a really tough one – I’m so glad I knew exactly what I wanted to do when I left school!  I love the great outdoors – I think wildlife photography would be quite high on my list, or something that was more beneficial to the world as a whole.

Do you have a nickname or used to and if so what was/is it and why?
- I don’t really have one, I just get a lot of ‘Moody? And are you?’ to which I reply YES!!

So as my last blog (rant) of the year, I have been reflecting on what has really stood out for me this year.

On the plus side:
Seeing all our customers and their horses progressing (and being part of your journeys), our brand developing, seeing so much more orange, meeting the rest of Childeric’s European Team and developing the business in Ireland, have been just a few of this year's many highlights.

The new Childéric FMPL Saddle is a hybrid close contact event/jump saddle. Offering the ultimate in close contact and comfort for the horse, this model features integrated panels & innovative flap design offering extended freedom at the wither and shoulder.
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Fans of the saddle include eventers Mike Ryan, James Avery and showjumper Katie Ptyches who believes that the saddles' close contact feel and design has amplified her aids and improved communication with her horses, as she explains;