Got some riding in at last

First of all I lunged Ace on the arena and he was an old slug, not fussed about moving at all. But I wasn't keen to ride him, since the surface was still 50% frozen and he  does love to go belting around at a rate of knots when he starts under saddle.

I did ride Jazz, just for 10 minutes, and he continues to amaze me in doing flying changes on a figure of eight canter as  a warm-up!  He gave me an accidental canter-halt the other day, so I thought I would try for some deliberate ones, since it's a movement in the next test level up from what we already do. I found that all I have to do is hold the rein and stop my back moving with him and forward he goes into a halt. This work is so, so enjoyable! He is such a clever horse, physically, now that he is aware of his own capabilties and has stopped fighting me.

Having said that, a tiny bit of shale on the bank unfroze as we went passed and dribbled down the bank. Oh my goodness, it  moved, it moved - all by itself - it's going to eat me!!!! He wouldn't go near it again, and since I was short of time I just worked him at least 5 metres short of it and that was fine with both of us :-)

I wanted to get some serious work into Radar and I didn't think the arena was good enough to do that so I checked his feet. To my surprise he has put out a good bit of hoof growth since Saturday and I was able to take him out on another good solid hack on the road. If we do, by some chance, get to hunt on Saturday, he's fit enough, so fingers crossed everyone.

C

ps The new Muppet movie is a laugh from start to finish. If you think the Muppets are fun you must see it!