This weather! Yesterday was torrential rain all day and 1.5 degrees and 40mph winds so we had to block the catflap and keep them in. Today 14 degrees and dry all day. I grab some riding when I can at the moment.

Jazz is doing some fantastic trot work but is proving very difficult with flying changes from left to right. We are working on cantering straight lines, and waiting, waiting, waiting for the aid, but he is being quite stroppy about it.

I have spoken to my vet about him dragging his toe behind, and also done some flexion tests. He is, very pleasingly, not the least reactive to a flexion test in spite of the enormous lumps on his hocks. The vet suggested I call a physio and have him checked over, because he felt that the toe-drag was very unlikely to be his hocks since he is sound in a 10m circle under saddle.

Before I did that, I though that I would have a good feel all over to see what I could find first. And I found a very obvious thickening in the tendon that runs down the front of his cannon bone, especially just above the fetlock. This tendon is of little importance. A friend of mine had a horse who severed hers, and other than a horrific scar it was never an issue. I will phone my vet tomorrow and see what he thinks, but I suspect we just need to work through it until he can flick his toe back up properly again.


I am finally understanding Ace. His behaviour has improved so much with an exercise blanket on! And he is working really well and improving in balance, cadance and responsiveness. I am very happy with him, but he can be a cheeky boy :-)  We did three dressage tests today. We ran through P4 twice, then P14 once. I went to run through P14 one last time and suddenly he decided that some blue barrels that he had been perfectly happy about were terribly dangerous. He was having me on, of course, and I corrected him and told him to get on with his work, which he did. But he did make me smile, it was such a cheeky boy thing to do!

Hopefully we will be competing on Wednesday. Fingers crossed.

C