You don't fool me with food!

I had almost as much fun grading the arena with the lawn mower as I do riding on it. Mind you, it was a spectacular afternoon, blue sky and sun with not a breath of wind. The surface is mixing nicely and a bed of fibres is rising to the top as the rubber chip settles in. That should help stop it tracking, and it also holds moisture in the summer.

I called the boys then, but Radar would not come in. Nah! he said. You don't fool me. The sun is still shining and if I come in now you'll want me to work on that darned arena again. I didn't want that at all but he wasn't going to come in.

The other two did, and I took Ace out for a hack. He was nervy and spooky but nowhere near as bad as Jazz was at his age. He did, though, catch fright at something - I couldn't work out what - and turn tail three times at one spot on the way home, and try to run away. I got him past it in a strong shoulder in, whatever "it" was. There was nothing I could see, but he is very sensitive to changes underfoot and I suspect that there may be a hollow under the road somewhere which he felt. He sweated a lot, I think he will have to be clipped. He has by far the thickest coat of anyone except Buttie.

I rode Jazz on the arena. Oh my. First we had a bit of a tussle about whether he was going to put his back into a decent walk, which was caused by the provocation of the others having been turned out, but I figure he is old enough to have to cope with that sort of thing now.  Then he did some slow trot, which I could almost get into piaffe. I haven't tried that for months but it is better than the last time I did. Then I did extensions across the diagonal and, oh boy, has he got it or what?!? I tried a bit of half pass, doing shoulder in up one side, travers along the next and looping back into a half pass. The right was fine, the left he was refusing to hold the travers forward, and sitting back behind me instead. I worked on that, slowing it right down so I could be sure to keep him in front of me, and then the half pass was probably the best trot left half pass he has ever done. It is certainly getting easier for him. All of fifteen minutes had passed, so I did a couple of flying changes on a 3 loop serpentine, which were astonishingly good seeing as we had not warmed up the canter. I had to stop then, he'd done so well!

C