Royal Ascot, Jimmy Choos & 'The Cabbage Patch'

To Blog or not to Blog? That is the question, and seeing as Id managed to palm off the last couple of posts on to @FoxintheCots and @theelfontour, its about time we resumed normal proceedings with one from me @HorseyHottie!! To be perfectly honest the girls had done such a superb job, I feared they may put me out of one, so I've kicked them in to touch quick smart.. See how I've already managed to get a football mention in.. brain washed I tell you, brain washed! My one and only thought on England and the World Cup is this: We were not fortunate to witness the beautiful man, playing the beautiful game and instead saw his, and our dreams of England winning the tournament dashed. We love you Becks. Hot flush, hot flush!! Right enough of that 'Fooosball' nonsense and on with Royal Ascot.. This is a HorseyHotties blog after all and I feel like I'm 'letting the side down'....!! OK..OK.. Enough already!!

So my day began bright and early on Royal Ascot Saturday, I jumped on a train from Newmarket to London whereby I would be meeting up with the HorseyHotties ladies @cbutterfill, @FoxintheCots, @theelfontour, @Miriam_Goddard & friend. Rondevu at pad 'Utterly Butterly' then KICK ON to Ascot!! The journey warrants an entire blog in itself but here's the short version. I nearly missed my connecting train at Cambridge.. managed to jump on it at the last minute.. result! NOT.. gone and plonked myself on a table of ruddy Germans! Typical! No I'm not making it up.. just look back at my tweets.. its on record! I arrive in London in good time, happy days, tube, sorted.. NOT.. Refurb work had closed the line further down and I was required to get on a bus, by this point I was thinking I should of driven after all :-s

So I finally arrive at pad 'Utterly Butterly' to be greeted by DJ Butter himself! He's not on Twitter yet.. but he will be! A quick outfit change and the HorseyHotties were 'Hot to Trot'!

"Quickly ladies.. ALL ABOARD the Ascot train" The train was filled to bursting point, but everyone was in high spirits. Top hats, floaty dresses, champagne, this is what its all about. The girls had come prepared with a couple of bottles of jolly nice fizz.. @cbutterfill being the 'Events Pro' that she is, took charge and coolly opened proceedings with no spillage on what was a moving train. The same couldn't be said for another group of ladies who's cork hit the ceiling and half the contents of fizz went all over them.. Unlucky!!

Now this is when we get on to that stunning pair of 'Jimmy's' @cbutterfill was wearing. Nothing less than 'KILLER HEELS', not only did she walk all day in them.. yes.. walk, not totter! She'd already done a full lap of the track on ladies day! And believe me its a good pull from the station to the parade ring.. now that's what I call a stayer!!

Right its about time I talk about some horses, as we had a look at the race card I saw there was a Clive Brittain runner in the first so I gather all the ladies together, gave my old pal Des a ring and said we'd try and say hello. We managed to get a good spot to see the Queen arrive in the main parade ring. Unfortunately by Saturday she was obviously suffering from 'WAVE ACHE'.. so we didn't get a wave but @FoxintheCots filled her waving shoes with such regal vigour, I felt one should curtsey! So Your Majesty, if by chance you read this, and why not?! She is a 'HorseyHottie Veteran' after all!! @FoxintheCots will wave on your behalf. (Apparently @FoxintheCots was Tweeting with @Queen_UK throughout the Royal Meeting, she's just too cool.. for pre prep skool!!)

Swiftly moving on!.. Once the queen had departed, I spotted Des in the parade ring, all the girls gave him a good old HorseyHotties shout out.. @FoxintheCots waved.. (any opportunity)!! It was a great day for the Clive Brittain yard as Zaidan stormed home to take the Chesham Stakes and we all got to witness Clive's winning 'Jig'! Top Man!

The standard, £10 a head to join HorseyHotties betting pool was in full force, except we never backed Zaidan.. Rubbish! I thought we were on to good thing with a tip from @jmaxse, he must have been having an off day! By the half way point we were down on our luck, however a good call from @cbutterfill saw us back on track. Just before the last race we hot footed it over to 'The Cabbage Patch', aptly named by @FoxintheCots (who by this point was secretly suffering from wave ache), however she pulled it together, showed her British grit to wave her flag, sing along with the big band and point and laugh at some crazy 'Cabbage Patch' lady wearing a full on body muff..! Only in 'The Cabbage Patch' would you find a body muff at Ascot!

And that was that! A super days racing, lots of laughs and a dam good sing along to God Save the Queen!! Oh Oh.. and a spot of work for Racing Welfare too, (new YouTube Vid coming soon!)

Till next time..

HorseyHottie out :-) xoxo

HorseyHotties do Antwerp international!!

This is my first blog for @horseyhottie and as she couldn’t come to watch the Goddard girls Bon voyage across the channel to compete for Great Britain at Lummen and Antwerp international shows she wanted the full download……..something that I am very good at! Much to @foxinthecots disgust! Opps windy pops just likes to pop up and say hi from time to time.

Lummen international is situated down a quite lane in Belgium’s countryside, where bicycles are the common transport, this week over 250 horseboxes descended. The flags were flying with over 18 nationality’s competing. @Miriam_Goddard had a great show with a 2^nd and 3^rd riding 'My Molly Malone', only being beaten by the reining Belgium national champion! I on the other hand, hit those bloody fences everyday, more superglue is needed the night before I think!

With over 1500 horses competing at the show, the only warm up arena if your not jumping in a class is around a giant pond that has fish the size of sharks in! A lot of people nearly needed there swim suits as over 100 horses worked around this pond!

Saturday night we headed to the show bar, which normally is heaving with everyone having a few quite drinks before the last day of the competition! However this bar was practically empty……we bumped into a friend who was heading to the local pub where the party is……we walk in to find all the top riders doing a Coyote ugly style dance on the bar!

After someone had attempted to break into the horse lorry one night after the show, @Miriam_Goddard and I decided that we needed to have a plan set up encase this happen again…….you don’t tend to carry to many burglar traps when going to a show so we settled for sleeping with a frying pan and sauce pan next to us so we could strike if someone came in!!

We then trucked onto Antwerp where we were joined by @foxinthecots & @cbutterfill. This show has a beautiful picturesque setting beside the port in the city centre. The ring is surrounded by hospitality dining, sponsors bar, ringside bar and grandstand on the other two side. The competition was very strong with everyone in Ferrari mode……. @Miriam_Goddard and 'My Molly Malone' were on top form to secure a 5^th in the speed leg and 10^th in the grand prix.

On the Friday night the feature class was the Six bar challenge were Robert Smith and Michael Whitaker tied to win, by clearing 2.15cm! Robert then went for the world record of 2.17cm for an extra £25,000 if he achieve it….he failed!

Once the jumping finished the fun began……each night there was a different band, from Boogie wonderland to a top DJ singer in Belgium…..who I can’t remember the name of but they must have been pretty famous as I have never seen the Belgium’s get so excited for a short guy with a blonde curtain style haircut!!!!

After a very successful 10 days it was time to come home, A trip that should take about 6.5 hours……..after being stuck in the Antwerp marathon traffic for 2 hours which was actually quite fun cheering all the lead runners on…….. They all perked up when we drove past! Back on the road after 10 minutes we heard a massive bang.......we have a blow out on the back inside tyre stuck on the side of the Motorway around Antwerp! 5 hours later with 2 new back tyres on, we were back on the road. On the 12.30pm ferry were we bump into the British vaulting team who had also been competing abroad. We arrive back at 'The Bronte Stud' Hampshire, at 4.15am, after a 1.30hr sleep we were back to reality on the train to work!

Hope you enjoyed @theelfontour.... till next time!!

CheltFest Guest Blog by the one.. the only FoxintheCots!

Being somewhat of a Twitter Novice, I am still rather surprised that my twitter drivel (or 'Twivel' as I like to call the bullshit that flows from my mouth) has been so widely received. So after much nagging from @horseyhottie and @nhtrainer, I am finally here attempting my first ever blog - Cheltenham Festival - what can I say? I LOVES it; the excitement, the build up, the outfit dilemmas (!) the parTAYs and of course meeting up with good mates to enjoy what is by far the best week of the year – even better than Christmas! Outfit planning started months ahead. For many punters choosing the beasts to back is top priority, however, me and the HorseyHottie ladies were deciding on tweeds, skirts and of course which muff to wear! @horseyhottie has started talking a good game now she is one of the Racing Welfare crew but we HH ladies know she put's more effort into her outfit than studying the form! Like I said planning started months in advance with trips to London for fittings at Katherine Hooker (always coinciding with a cheeky night out with the London ladies!). For me Cheltenham attire is about wrapping up warm, donning the tweed and a cracking pair of boots, HELLO, it’s not Ascot! Who wants to see girls huddling together to keep warm in summery dresses and strappy heels!

Unfortunately, I was still recovering from some killer superbug that knocked me sideways so this year’s festival was a little on the quieter side for me – or perhaps I’m just getting old! Nonetheless I was determined to go at least 3 days and made an executive decision that Wednesday would be my rest day – on the sofa with duvet and hot toddies on tap. Had to be on form for when the ladies arrived for the last two days.

The highlight of the week was seeing our friend @WTKJockey riding 'Time For Rupert' home after a cracking race and a great battle with Big Bucks in the World Hurdle. Up there with watching the Gold Cup, me and 'The Elf' (who is yet to learn of the wonders of Twitter – but I’m working on it) nearly peed our pants shouting and screaming for him. Amazing Will – well done! Next time I’ll bring some large pink and purple pompoms to help cheer you on! Wait I think The Elf has some big pompoms of her own already built in! ;-)

Had a random experience whilst walking on to the lawn to watch a race. Strutting my tweeded butt I suddenly heard a yell….. “FoxintheCots”….. Oh god I thought as my heart sank worried that I had said something to offend someone on that bloody app Twitter. But no, thankfully @jpfestival had recognised me – not sure how- maybe it was the big ginger fro?? This prompted a spontaneous Twitter ‘Meet and Greet’ aka 'TweetUp' on the Gold Cup day when @jpfestival, @horseyhottie, @FoxintheCots and @cbutterfill!! Unfortunately, @jpfestival luck did not rub off on us and our big gambling syndicate (£10 a head to join!) was way way down! However, the last race finally won us enough for a nice bottle of bubbles in the Arkle Bar. I’m sure Twitter went into overload and cries of "Tweet Tweet" were heard – did we see any racing at all!?

It was great watching the Gold Cup from a balcony of a friend’s box – down the way from the Royal box – (well we are practically royalty!) just fantastic!! A great view of the course and of course @paddypower’s PADDYWOOD sign just fab! What an exciting race, absolutely brilliant and well done to @jpfestival for backing the winner months in advance at 25/1 ,maybe I should take more notice of those tips than picking out tweeds!!!

Till next time,

FoxintheCots out..

New job.. new home!! (part2)

And I'm back in the room...

Now where was I, ok yep, part two of the epic move from Rural Hollyoaks to Newmarket. I had a couple of weeks to get everything sorted before driving down to Racing HQ. The plan was to split the move, filling my car with as much a I could cram in, live out of the suitcase for two weeks, start at Racing Welfare before heading to Cheltenham for the Festival and doing a round trip back again with another car load!! Confused..?? It all made perfect sense!!

So the first trip down was going swimmingly, I'd hit the road in good time, done about an hour down the A41 and had just got on the M54, so only ten minutes from Birmingham and the dreaded traffic nightmare that is the M6. But you know what, I didn't mind the thought of a nose to tail slow crawl through Brummie country. The sun was shining, the tunes were banging.. life was good. Or so I thought!! I suddenly had an awful sinking feeling, you know the one that hits right in the pit of your stomach. Id forgotten something, and it was important.. as I shout out loud in my best cockney accent, "You're havin a laugh mate" I'd only gone and forgotten my entire work wardrobe!! Classic case of "DOH!!" in true Homer Simpson style, I cant bloody believe it!!!!

Now I've had that awful 'sinking feeling' on the odd occasion whilst eventing, going miles to a competition, leaving at the crack of dawn, triple checked the check list yet some how I've arrived without gloves/ breeches/ jacket and even my body protector!! Seriously... how does that happen??!! So I double back, add an additional two hours on to my journey, typical! I think that's what some would call Karma, the entire moving process had gone too well up until that point, so throwing a miniature spanner in the works wasn't that bad on the grand scheme of things.

The following day I was going to London for one of the my HorseyHottie pals birthday bash. It was all very exciting as I hadn't seen some of the girls since the Claire Lomas Fashion show, and was still rather hyped from moving!

Not content that I'd driven enough miles the day before, I decided to drive down from Newmarket to Clapham rather than taking the train. This decision was not smart and it certainly wasn't clever. On the sliding scale of Country/ Townie I'd put myself on a 60%/40% split, after driving through London it would be more along the lines of 50%/50%. It didn't help matters that I had left my old skool map in the HottieBox back up in Rural Hollyoaks, but not to worry, I'd borrowed a SatNav, so nothing could possibly go wrong and I'd arrive at my destination in good time, smack bang outside their front door! This is me were talking about, that never happens!!

Sure enough Little Miss SatNav voice-over lady sent me straight onto the north circular and right in to some seriously slow moving traffic. Now that, I could cope with, I'd still arrive, just a little bit late. But then.. DISASTER STRUCK!!!! Little Miss SatNav voice-over lady (that's such a mouthful, should of thought of a shorter name!) said those dreaded words "you have five minutes of battery life remaining" Noooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

This was now NOT COOL!! And I get on the blower to FoxintheCots who was also driving in from Cotswold Country. Sure enough she too was caught in the uber massive traffic tailback and she wasn't too far away!! PHEW!! So we managed to meet up and in classic HorseyHotties style began to find our way to Clapham in convoy. A couple of country gals driving through the streets of London.. We managed to maintain a running commentary for the remainder of the trip, and quickly realised that driving in London isn't that dissimilar from a days hunting!! Just replace 'hound' with 'bike'... "bike on the right", and when one wants to pull out to jump a fence.. or in London change lanes "don't indicate, just PULL OUT, PULL OUT!"

So after all of that we finally made it to Clapham, got ready in super fast time and hit the big smoke with the girls.. Party on!!

Now I'm hoping my next blog post will be a 'Cheltenham Festival' special, reviewed by none other than FoxintheCots, highlighting her entire week at the meeting, she hasn't given me the thumbs up yet so please pester her on Twitter.. Click Here NOW!!

Till next time.. HorseyHottie out xoxo

New job.. new home!! (part1)

Well where do I start.. the last month has been full of exciting changes, namely I started a new job for the charity Racing Welfare. I initially heard about the position via Twitter, so all you tweet sceptics out their, get with the programme because you never know what exciting opportunities could be just around the corner.

I got my application off quick sharp as I only had a few days left to apply and I don't mind saying now that I must have filled in the application form 4-5 times before I was satisfied. In the mean time I had starting doing a bit of riding out for local Chester trainer Lisa Williamson whereby I had my first taste of jumping down a line of chase fences on a 'proper' racehorse at pace and with another upsides. Not like back in the day when the eventing still required we took our boys for a blast round in between roads and tracks, that was dam good fun! You know what I miss that, a real old skool 3day event with the works.

Anyway I'm babbling now.. so the second horse I jumped 'Ben' was a huge chestnut lad, must have been pushing well over 17hh. He'd only left the floor a couple of days earlier and that day it was up to me to put the big man down his first line of BIG jumps. So we've got a lead, come in at a reasonable pace and he jumps fab! Ben's got some serious scope and took every fence on including the ditch. Whoop! What a great feeling, so off we go back to the start and go again, and YEEHAAA!! This horse LOVES IT!! But then.... Aaaaaarrrrghhhh!! No he loves it too much, and as soon as I had landed after the last big ditch, the big man has bombed off with me, hooning it good style up to the end of the gallop.. it was raining that morning and with the sweat my reins were becoming more and more slippery, even with my normally uber grippy MacWet's I kept ending up back at the buckle end. Needless to say all was well as he pulled himself up. Phew! So I turn the big man round and go down the line again.. 'gulp'.. but all was cool and he jumped great. I was fortunate to ride a real mixture of horses at Lisa's which included a rather randy 2yr old colt who was a proper cheeky chestnut chappy called Chester, lets just say he liked the ladies... oh yeah!! The whole team at Lisa's were all extremely friendly and even though I was only there for three weeks before landing the Racing Welfare position I had a great time. One of the lads I had a good giggle with was from Pakistan and called Shahbaz, I ended up calling him Ricky, after the Latino singing sensation Ricky Martin. I don't know why but I couldn't get the song 'She Bangs She Bangs' out of my head!!! Totally random right??!!

.... to be continued.

Tweed and Muff...

Firstly I shall apologise for the delay in this post, I've been waiting on some very special pictures that only just arrived!!.. I shall begin by taking you back to Saturday 30th of January whereby the HorseyHotties Possy were to reunite for a days racing at Cheltenham. My day had started early at 5am (I hadn't been up at that time since riding out at Clive Brittains), I was taking my 19yr old eventing school master down with me to Gloucestershire to start a new life as a 'happy hacker', I'm not a big fan of that phrase so lets call him a 'happy hacker with poke!'... (Punch) will most certainly give his new rider a lot of fun!

It was a freezing morning and a good run in the HottieBox (Lorry) would normally take about three hours to get from Rural Hollyoaks to Cotswold Country. So the old boy was loaded, ready to rock and roll, munching hay and was so excited about going on a road trip of his very own he'd already churned out a serious amount of 'Punchy Poo!' But it was all to no avail, the HottieBox had let me down and in the biting cold air she wouldn't start... Noooooooo! I couldn't quite believe it, so I find the jump leads, hooked up the car, pull my poor dad out of bed and after 20mins or so charging the battery.. YES we have lift off and I'm on the road!! Phew.. panic over! Now those of you who know me will remember that I seem to be jinxed with flat batteries.. back in 2007 I spent a very cold and wet night in a Glastonbury car park, saved by a farmer boy and his big tractor! But that's another story entirely!

I made good time and arrived around 9am, unloaded Punch, settled him in his new stable before heading over to join FoxintheCots and the HorseyHotties possy. Now this was when the fun started, all the girls were suited and booted for a day's racing and Samantha Drake from Drakes Bespoke Country Clothing had brought a selection of tweed coats and accessories for us to wear. So after a quick lady like discussion.. "I want that one" we were off to Cheltenham in 'tweet and muff'...

It really was a fab days racing, glorious sunshine, an action packed race card and lots of fun to be had by all.

This leads me on nicely to our RacingUK interview, and that's what I love about a days racing, you are guaranteed to have a dam good time and just might get on the tele!! RacingUK had a very good looking male HorseyHottie with TV camera and 'What a Punt' sign, located by the paddock all day. So just before the last race FoxintheCots, flagged by her two HorseyHottie 'wingwomen', told Mr RacingUK all about her best 'punt'. Punjabi in last years Champion Hurdle, picked for the pink silks.. Punjabi came home to give FoxintheCots enough pennies to purchase a matching Mulburry diary to go with her Mulburry purse.. She's just far too cool for school,so if you see the interview, PLEASE let me know it was HILARIOUS!! I on the other hand have had little to no success on the betting front other than when Red Marauder battled in the muddy slop at Aintree back in 2001 to win the Grand National, I can still remember being on the edge of my seat willing him over every fence praying that he wouldn't fall!! Think I ended up with 50quid in my back pocket and back then I probably spent it on my pony.. actually thinking back to Pony Club days, the Katie Price Equestrian collection didn't exist so all my boys over the years have been saved the humiliation of being 'Pimped in Pink'!! Whoopsy daisy just had a big bout of verbal diarrhoea again.. So back to Cheltenham, I'd put a request out on the tweets for tips and the phrase 'I am not amused' comes to mind, I shall save those so called 'tipsters' from naming and shaming, but not one tip was on the money!! Bad form guys.. very bad form. However any future 'top tips' will be praised with HorseyHotties love and promoted heavily so tweet me your festival tips now!! Think that's just about covered everything other than I shall wish everyone a very happy Valentines weekend, and for all us singletons GET ON LINE, HorseyHotties.com has seen a serge in talent over the last few weeks.. Go on.. have some fun!!

Oh Oh.. one last thing I must do a big HorseyHotties shout out to 'Maggie' and the Newmarket HorseyHotties Possy, I promised to put Maggie in the blog! Bye for now!!

Walk Walk Fashion Baby...

Well where do I start! What a fabtastically fun evening of entertainment last Saturday's inaugural 'Riders Fashion Show' was, and a massive HorseyHotties 'Hi Five' with 'BomChicka WahWah' shout out to Claire Lomas, all the models and everyone involved in making the night a huge success!! I hear over £10,000 was raised for Spinal Research and the Get Claire Walking Campaign, absolutely brilliant.

The event was held at Newbury Racecourse and I was heading down from Rural Hollyoaks country, stopping off in the Cotswolds to meet up with half of our HorseyHotties possy, convening with non other than Cheltenham's one and only... 'FoxintheCots' (pictured) you can follow her on Twitter too! FoxintheCots.. racing enthusiast, socialite, model and all round 'good egg' had been doing a fashion shoot of her own earlier in the week for Drakes Bespoke Country Clothing who were to be showcasing some pieces on the night.

I'm not quite sure why, but there is something a little bit spiritual about a good old fashioned, girls on tour style road trip. FoxintheCots had pre mixed a party playlist, and roadtrip snacks meant that by the time we had reached our hotel in Newbury we were bouncing off the walls like four hyperactive toddlers who'd just consumed too many E numbers!! All of which made for some classic HorseyHotties banter!

The remainder of our HorseyHotties possy arrived shortly after us and by 7pm we were ready to jump in the taxi and hot foot it over to Newbury racecourse. By this point we had already consumed several bottles of fizzy bubbles or as one HorseyHottie called it.. we'd started early on the 'naughty water'!

Naughty? Us? Good god no!! I mean its only rude not to come to a party without goodies, and the girls had done good! We had a superb collection from glow bracelets, whoop whoop party horns, cocktail umbrellas, 3D specks and the Pièce de résistance being a toss up between the home brew Sloe Gin or the drinking specks.. no no.. it was a dead heat.. slurping home brew through the drinking specks!! However my personal favourite was watching the entire fashion show in 3D... AMAZING!!

As the models began to 'strut' their stuff we cheered and whooped! I have heard underground reports about a so called table of "rowdy ladies", I'm not being funny, but come on people.. lighten up.. there is nothing worse than a dead crowd!

The majority of this vocal accolade was directed at non other than individual bronze medallist from the Beijing Olympics and current European Eventing Champion Tina Cook as well as Channel4 Racing's Alice Plunkett. However the overall 'HorseyHotties Possy Award' and our number one favourite model of the night went to Louise Skelton! She absolutely ROCKED the runway and both myself and FoxintheCots are now huge fans and would like to make her our new BFF!

The auction followed, after which a large majority of us party goers hit the dance floor before pulling an all nighter in Newbury's 'Liquid' Nightclub. How we all made it back to the hotel I shall never know, so all I can say is what an amazing night, filled with FUN, FROLICS and FASHION.. oh.. and a spot of naughty water too!!