Welcome to our new blog.
This is your chance to get closer to Joules and to become a part of our community.
Receive style tips from our Creative Director, and then share your own.
Try a recipe from an award winning chef, and let us know how it went.
And keep up-to-date with the adventures of world champion equestrian
sportswoman Mary King.
The horses are all back in work now…doing their initial roadwork.
Jodie Rorke and Emma Moore my 2 wonderful grooms are having fun
clipping, mane and tail pulling, and trimming them…. transforming them
all from hairy mammoths to sleek event horses!
I have an exciting new horse in my yard called Chilli Morning. He is an
advanced event stallion who has been produced by Nick Gauntlett up to
four star level. Chris Stone, Chilli’s owner, asked if I would event him
this year and I jumped at the opportunity. He is a stallion that I have
admired for a number of years, so much so that I used him to cover Kings
Temptress 3 years ago and now have two 2 yr old geldings by him!
Plan A for my advanced horses this year are to aim Apache Sauce and
Chilli Morning for Badminton CCI****, and Imperial Cavalier and Kings
Temptress (my 2 main Olympic hopes) for Chatsworth CIC***.
MHS King Joules and Cavalier Venture my 2 younger horses will continue
their education aiming for Houghton Hall CCI** and CCI* respectively.
Since Christmas I have been lecturing/teaching in USA, did 2 days
filming at home by an American film crew who are making a documentary,
and squeezed in a few days skiing with my family in Switzerland over the
New Year (thank goodness came home unscathed!). I opened a new indoor
riding school at Bicton College and Emily and I did a demo. So there is
plenty going on, but I am looking forward to the horses getting a bit
fitter so I can start their serious training!
Best wishes
Mary
My Ninjago Lego Cake, was made a special birthday and was constructed of vanilla sponge, pieced together with buttercream and colourful fondant icing.
The only missing Lego part is the plate to eat it off!
As well as creating the large scale Ninjago cake, seen above I also made a miniature version for another birthday.
This Mini Ninjago was made for Pete’s 6th birthday, who was very happy to own and eat an edible superhero!
Since a lovely Christmas break, with all the stables empty and the horses out in the field having a well deserved holiday… everything is now back in full swing. The horse all came back into work at the beginning of the week, looking fat and shaggy! They will have a month of road work, then start their fast work (galloping) and their schooling, gradually getting them fit and ready for the start of the even season in March. I have two exciting new young horses for this season, Charlie- who is a 5yr, 16.1hh, dutch bred gelding, and Brian- who is a 5yr, 17.hh, dutch bred gelding. This will be both of their firsts seasons eventing, both of them have not competed before. They are both very talented young horses… so it should be a very exciting season! Mr Hiho (my top horse) thoroughly enjoyed his winter break but is now also back in full work building up his fitness… I will compete him in the Junior trials this year and aim to to the CIC** at Houghton Hall, with my eyes set on the Junior European Championships!
My Winter Snowscene Cake was created for a special 60th Birthday here at Joules. Val, whose birthday it was for, was also celebrating heading off to Jamaica for Christmas. As a result I decided to flavour the cake with the festive and foreign spices of ginger. Coconut snow added to the Caribbean theme, together with mint imperial ‘snowballs’ and Fox’s glacier mints acting as shards of ice. My fondant peppermint cream snowflakes and final dusting of icing sugar snow and edible glitter finished the whole Jamaican inspired Winter Wonderland off!
