No rain - shock! And SUN - double shock!!

Wow, what weather today. No rain for the first time in a long time. Brilliant sunshine AND no wind. There was a covering of snow on the arena though, so I decided to take Ace out on a hack rather than risk any messing around on a slippery surface. I gave him a firm contact and although he was a bit jittery at his shadow and at the big lumps of snow left by the plough when it cleared the road, he didn't do anything silly. That's quite a big improvement and I enjoyed taking him out. He is getting to feel like a very big boy, I must get a stick on him. He's definitely taller than either of the other two by quite a margin.

Then I schooled Jazz on the snow and he didn't mind it much at all. He is so much better than he used to be even a year ago. He had a look at the snow on the barrels by the side of the arena, but only out of curiosity and not really stupid. He did some absolutely super walk travers and shoulder in and a correspondingly good walk half pass. He went into a trot which was much more controllabel and balanced than is usual for the beginning of a session and got a nice half pass on each rein. In canter left he was lovely, with a super canter half pass into a jump-through change of leg. On the right rein he was sticky, stiff somewhere and trying to pull through my hands. I did some transitions and circles to free him up, which worked nicely, and then he did a lovely half pass into another very expressive flying change. I stopped then, he'd been such fun and so willing and I didn't want to spoil anything.

I am hoping for some points at Medium this year with Jazz, and as soon as we get some we'll go for an Advanced Medium test. That'll be fun!

C