Unrecognisable

What horse am I talking about?

 He has not been ridden since eight days before. He's never, as far as I can recollect, been ridden on a snow covered arena. I lunged him and he didn't even skip once, he just trotted and cantered totally sensibly. I rode and he did one sideways twitch of his bottom at the first trot transition. Other than that he was as quiet as a lamb.

Ace is simply unrecognisable as the same horse that I was trying to ride last October/November. He's just a total sweetheart.   I heated him up first of course, and he had his exercise blanket on, but it was minus two, so I was expecting  a lot more trouble than that from a fresh young horse.

He cocked an eye at a blue barrel, and following our success out on hacks I dropped the reins and told him that he could go and  look at it if he wanted to. He sidled up to it, bit it, and then looked bored. As I turned him away he kicked it accidentally with a hind foot, whereupon it made a booming noise, and he didn't even break stride.

I have my strategy fixed for competing now. I will enter unaffiliated and tell the judge before I start that we have tried all ways to cure him of spooking at the letters, but only one is working. Then when he starts to look at a letter in the middle of the test I will forget all about making him do the movement, and release the reins. I hope only to have to do this a few times before he stops the spooking altogether, but we'll have to see how well it goes.

Radar is sound and could be ridden if only the road had been ice free this morning. It's safe now, and it's a beautiful windless sunny afternoon out there but I have already ridden one, spent a couple of hours supporting a friend whose mum is dying and gone for a 5 1/2 mile walk with OH, and I am just too tired :-(   It's a waste of a great opportunity but if I go out now I shall completely cream cracker myself. Besides which there is no hunting this week again, so nothing to hurry to get him back in work for.


C