Last night was incredible! My Mum and I spent an excellent evening at the Wiltshire Life Awards Ceremony, enjoying the delicious food and entertainment. My category had been shortlisted to four people with extremely strong candidates so I thought I had no chance and decided to just relax and enjoy the free champagne. We were the penultimate award so had an agonizing wait for the result but eventually it was our turn, where I was announced the Young Achiever of the Year! I was very suprised to...
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Finally my exams are over! As they have stretched over nearly three weeks so far the return to uni has not been much fun. To be honest quite sick of being locked up in my bedroom staring at notes so finally freedom! Refreshers starts next week and we have been reliving the fun of our Freshers week today when I found my camera with loads of pictures on it that I had forgotten about.
Can't say my exams have gone brilliantly but I have done my best and worked hard so there's not much more I can ...
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Great drive with Jasper in the snow today, he was not very impressed! You can see a video of our drive here
The other picture is Jasper galloping up the field today as he was desperate to come in and out of the cold.
He is such a wuss! I have done some revision today as I have yet more exams next week which was a lot less fun but I do at least feel productive.


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Woke up this morning to about 4 inches of snow! This was all incredibly exciting but... I had an exam in the afternoon so spent all morning cooped up indoors revising :(
But at 12pm we were told the uni was shut, exams were cancelled and we escaped outside to freedom and a massive snowball fight! Amazing fun!
The bad news is that obviously I still have to do the exam but they have postponed it to a Saturday that I am away competing on. Not sure what happens now but hopefully it can be sorted ou...
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Its been a long day for me today!
After yesterdays early start the discussions then continued late into the night last night so an extra hour or two in bed this morning was greatly appreciated. The theme of the day was Review and Planning with most of the talks being given by fellow National Young Drivers (including me!) at The Unicorn Trust. I also got a chance to talk to the BYD Sports Psychologist, Nichola today which was fantastic as my life is going through so many changes at the minute w...
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Double clear! Jasper and I repeated last years feat to have the most amazing double clear!!
This enabled us to keep our 4th place meaning we have qualified to move up a level to compete at National Intermediate level next season. This is particularly good news to me as standing presentation is only compulsory in Novice classes and with my very old carriage we do not always get very good scores for this no matter how clean everything is.
Galloping round the arena on our lap of honour was the mo...
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Up early for the marathon this morning! After walking them in the dark last night they seemed much easier to remember this morning. The route was stunning and we ran into lots of dear this year (just like last year) all helpfully stood in the middle of a compulsory flag. They did move... eventually! I was not particularly pleased with our obstacles as I made a foolish mistake in the 7th which cost us valuable time but importantly we got round safely. I was less disappointed when I realised we...
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The weather here at Windsor is wonderful! I feel like I am back in Spain, although it is a bit chillier in the mornings!
We were on quite late today and Jasper did the BEST test he has ever done! He scored 45 and we are currently in 2nd place! We are quite a long way behind the leader but I am so chuffed with how well he went today. We also got 50/50 in our presentation so huge thanks to my 'Gleam Team' who are better known as my Mum, Julie, Ann and Kiera who have spent hours helping polish ev...
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Today we are off to the BHDTA National Championships at the Queen Victoria Review Ground, Windsor Great Park.
Jasper is bathed, clipped, shod and ready to go. He has also had his mane pulled and is looking very handsome!
His tail is all wrapped up to stop him ruining it and we are all loaded up ready to go!

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For someone who never gets interesting post I had a very exciting letter from the BHDTA today containing my official union jack flag to wear in Austria!
I am so happy as I was worried I might not get to wear it and its fantastic to have our hard work officially recognised.
In terms of progress for Austria most of my team kit has arrived, our team lorry stickers are in progress, the paperwork is being sorted as is our route.
Its really close now and I seriously can't wait.
Our local paper the Sali...

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Had another great days training today with James Rooney but a driven one this time. We loaded the trailer back up and drove down to Anns yard. I had my lesson first working on the dressage test I will be doing in Austria. Jasper went brilliantly today, really pleased with him, going in a lovely rounded outline and really trying his best with his medium trot.
The picture is of us warming up so his outline is not as nice there but mum forgot to take any more pictures!
After behaving so well all w...

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Spent a fabulous day in Hampshire today training with Caroline Douglas in preparation for Austria.
Jasper was great and showed huge improvement throughout the day so I was really pleased with him. I got loads out of my lesson and I am glad we did as I feel so much more postive about Austria now. Big thanks to Caroline for a great lesson and for her generous hospitality. The icing on the cake is that today the weather has been brilliant, sunshine never fails to lift my mood.
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Spent a great weekend at Windsor Park Equestrian Clubs two day club event. As my exams (and Austria!!) are getting pretty close I'm not competing this weekend but instead backstepping for my friend Jo Basset and her pony Flash.
I had such fun, and it was really nice to be out and about without the added stress of actually competing myself for a change. Its been a while since I have done any backstepping and I really enjoyed myself.
Driving up to Windsor was also my first solo long distance driv...
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Blue Chip have just posted my latest update on their website, check it out! We're even on the front page!

http://www.bluechipfeed.com/2012/06/07/may-2012-%E2%80%93-amber-o%E2%80%99neill-update/

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Today has been a great days training at Fenix Carriages in Devon, with two different groups running alongside each other. One group was trained by Wilf Bowman-Ripley who is a team trainer as this group is headed to Austria and the other group consisting of BYD South West members was trained by Mark Broadbent.
My best friend Ann, who I am traveling out to Austria with as she is on the JWT team stayed round mine Friday night and we were up all night messing about painting our nails with Union J...
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So excited to announce that Jasper and I have been selected to compete in the FEI Junior European Championships hosted by Austria this July. This is the best piece of news I have ever had and I can't say how proud I am that I will be representing Great Britain for the fourth time. This is going to be Jaspers first international competition and there is so much to organise and plan! There is no greater honour than to represent your country in the sport you live and breathe and words cannot des...
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Watching all that polo yesterday has turned Jasper into a marathon star! We won the marathon and had one of the best scores out of the whole event! We have done a lot of fittening work with him recently which meant the marathon seemed easy to him. We had some of the fastest times and he finished feeling like he would go round again. At the halt he had his Horse Quencher and has a heart rate of just 52 which was great. After that fabulous result we finished 2nd overall, with enough people in t...
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Dressage went well today after the ever scary standing presentation. The going was far heavier than I had anticipated and I was pleased with another score of 57 and 48/50 in both phases respecitvely. However the best part of today is our fantastic double clear in the cones. I was really annoyed with the time penalties I had last time at Ashfields and was determined not to have any today. I also kept trying to remind myself I had driven far more technical courses than this one and we didn't to...
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Had a bit of a suprise when I got home from school yesterday as Jasper had changed colour! Mum had finally got round to clipping him and much as I hate to admit it I am very impressed with how neat a job she has done.
Having spent the past week removing all the mud from Ashfields from all our kit and loading everything back up we actually did leave as soon as I got home from school. Hurray! The journey was stressful as trying to find the right gate to enter the Great Park and towing a trailer...
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Today was the final day of Ashfields National and we were the first driver in the arena this morning; an experience I always find nerve wracking. Jasper was fab today and we had a great clear with just a smidgen of time penalties. That is the annoying thing about going first is you have no idea how tight you are going to be on time, but oh well, nothing I can do about it. I was really chuffed with this until the judges told me I was eliminated! My heart just sank. They told me I had not drive...
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Mud mud glorious mud! Todays marathon was shortened drastically to try and make it fairer for the horses, with extra time and slower speeds to make. This was a good decision as it saved the horses for the obstacles which included a real tank in honour of this years charity, Help4Heroes. Luckily a tank is nothing unusual for us, living where we do. Infact I walked past it about 5 times yesterday and didn't even see it! Jasper was on FIRE today storming round, so proud of him and really pleased...
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As we are at a National event we are here for three days which means I am missing school today. Oh well, will worry about that later! Our Dressage went brilliantly today with a score of 57, which is well under the 65 target (again!) and the best in the class! As predicted all my cleaning was pointless as just walking from the lorry park ruined all my hard work. Luckily the presentation judge was very understanding. Spent the rest of today walking incredibly muddy obstacles, which the organise...
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Today we left for Ashfields as soon as I got home from school and being better organised then last time only left an hour later than planned so we actually arrived in the daylight to set up. Our friend Kate texted us on the way to warn us how muddy it is here. As we were only here 2 weeks ago and it was fairly muddy then, I thought she was probably making a fuss about nothing, until we actually got here and saw the true extent of the mud. It looks more like I've accidently stumbled into Glast...
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Today is marathon day and the course is so muddy! It has hardly stopped raining here and the ground is greasy at the best of times so today it is a mudbath! The marathon was shortened slightly to reflect this. Jasper was so keen this morning it was like a different pony. We were coming in on minimum times and made the walk easily. Although we werent the fastest in the obstacles, he is still young and I was pleased with his willingness. We came 6th overall which I was thrilled about, with plac...
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Day one of the compeition is an early start for me as we are the second competitor in the arena. I was up at 6am early enough to take a picture of the sun rising as I walked the cones course which suited me much better then the one at the Indoor Championships. This event is not just a start of season warm up for us (as its very far away from home) as it is a selection event for Austria. We have been told we have to get a dressage score of less then 65. Our test went well and I am pleased to s...
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After an seriously boring week at school, as soon as I got home today we loaded Jasper and set off to the EACDGs 2DE at Ashfields. We have spent all week getting ready so everything was packed, clean and ready. Jasper loaded without too much of a fuss and we were off down the A303 yet again. However being Friday night at rush hour we hit traffic and ended up arriving at 9 o'clock at night in the pitch black. We have a trailer, not a lorry and everything has to be completely dismantled so that...
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On January 29th I went to another BYD on foot meeting at Unicorn Trust, Stow-on-the-Wold, for another excellent sports psychology talk with Nicola Kentzer on Team Building, where we learnt several techniques that we will be putting into practice in our upcoming outdoor season. This is particularly relevant as the British Young Drivers are starting the selection process for the Junior World Trophy and for the first time, the FEI Junior Championships will be run alongside it in Austria, July 20...
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