Light blue touchpaper and stand back!!!

Oops, nearly made a big mistake today :-0 !!!

I was grooming Ace before I rode him and found that a couple of little bites that he had right on his backbone were shedding a thin line of scab. Jazz will have caused the bites, of course, but they were right in the gullet of the saddle and I have ridden him three or four times with them already with no problems.I tried to pull off the little papery strip but he felt it and winced, so I meant to get some scissors and cut it, but by the time I had finished grooming him I forgot.

So on went the saddle and out we went to the arena. He stood nicely and I got on and asked him to move off. Oh my golly gosh he only just contained himself. His back went up and he felt like a volcano about to explode. I stopped him, still not realising what was going on and he stood quiet. But on asking him to move, Vesuvius was back. I stopped him again and he was quivering with nerves and I got off gently and spoke to him. He looked so grateful that I had got off that it was clear that he was not being naughty, but something was wrong.

I took the saddle off and picked off every bit of anything that I could see on the wool lining on the numnah, and then remembered the scab. I twisted that off and poked and prodded at the bites to make sure nothing was hurting him, then put the saddle back on, and he was fine.

We had a good session on both reins, with only one kick out on a canter transition (left, for once!) when I stupidly asked him for the transition even though I could feel how unbalanced he was. Apart from that, he behaved beautifully. He did suggest once or twice that we had done enough and he'd like to go back to the others now, but he accepted me asking him to work a bit longer with very good grace.

What a gentleman of a horse he is - what extraordinary manners. It is clear that the little strip of scab was catching on the numnah and either hurting or frightening him badly, but he made a huge effort to restrain himself from bucking me off. How many babies would have done that?

C.