Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

Whoah! Minus 4 (24.8 for you guys in the States) when I went outside today, and a strong wind making it feel much more like minus 10.  I ran for cover to the gym, but this afternoon I made myself go out and ride because the wind had dropped a lot and the temperature was a basking half degree above zero.

Radar was his usual self, so he got plenty of exercise before he would settle and kept me plenty warm with the amount of work I was having to do. But he did do some decent trot, and particularly showed improvement in his canter right, where I held the left rein firm and made him work to it, which stopped him from producing his usual motorbike wall of death act.

Then I lunged Ace and he was an old donkey, so  I got on and clipped on my jacket and asked him to move off and he felt very threatening, hunching his back.  With the confidence of the jacket I spurred him on into a trot and although he did have a buck or two they really were nothing serious. I followed my new policy of holding a firm contact and he did some decent enough trot and canter.  I worked a bit on shoulder in because he had begun to set on me gong forwards.  Then suddenly  he produced a trot that he has never done before. Usually his trot is punchy and uphill, but all of a sudden it was punchy, uphill and about half as long again in stride length as anything that he has ever done before. He wasn't lengthening, he was just producing so much power from behind into my holding hand that he was staying in the air much longer than normal. It must have looked totally awesome!  I shall certainly be working on getting that again.

The real triumph of the day, I guess, was that in spite of repeated overnight frosts and a complete white coating, the arena was completely rideable. I never expected that, I am thrilled with its performance. We've had extreme wet and extreme cold. The only test it has left to pass is extreme dry. I'm sure we'll get that again some time, it's happened the last two years in spring.


C

ps blogspot is up the creek for posting comments at the moment, I think, or is it just my machine? I can't post on my own or on Tetley or Jean's blogs.