I hacked Jazz!

I finally felt more like hacking Jazz than going in the playpen, so out we went. These days, we pootle along on a loose rein and he occasionally takes a look at his own shadow, but generally swings along happily. The sun was shining and the sky was blue and we enjoyed ourselves.

I had meant to hack out Ace as well, but the playpen proved the stronger attraction and we have done our first full and proper schooling session on it. He napped a couple of times but only half heartedly suggesting that we had done enough. He was having some trouble in right bend in trot (so I know it's not me, as Jazz's bad rein is the left). I kept  moving the circle to keep the bend, and then I brought it in tighter, which made him very tense and then throw his back end up. I was concerned that he was stiff somewhere, but when I put him back on the circle he did some nice work, so I think he was just having a little protest.  He did a really sharp spook at one point when he saw my shadow rise on the far side of the arena (there is a "wall" of excavated stone there and the sun was very bright and very low, casting a 30 metre shadow). He reacts extremely quickly, he is really VERY sharp when he wants to be.

We carried on and did some very good walk to canter, some very good walk shoulder in, some very good longer/shorter trot work (he is going to find medium trot SO easy!) and some patchy walk/trot transitions that improved hugely after a half dozen or so. It sounds a lot but we didn't do more than a few minutes on each thing and the whole session was only 40 minutes.

Ace is ready for more serious stuff like this now, and he is improving all the time. I must take some photos of him, his neck is unbelievable in the way it has increased in depth. He's a handsome boy!

C