Meet Errol

WOW! When we picked him up he was even better than we had hoped. On top of everything else he has rain sensor wipers and cruise control. Flipping heck, why do people pay £60,000 for Range Rovers when you can get a Skoda Yeti with an Audi engine and running gear for a third of the price?  We are so lucky to be able to afford him with  SH's work pension kicking in this year. I don't know how I got to be married to such an old  man!!!   I haven't driven Errol yet but the ride is superb, and I have set my driver seat memory, which was fun. When I press button 2, the wing mirrors go to where I want them, and the seat height, rake, lumbar support and distance from the footwell all adjust to my setting. How smart is that :-) ?  I can't wait to test the 'look Ma no hands' parallel parking.

I rode Ace this morning and had a great session. Not because he was good, but because he wasn't really wanting to work, and yet I was able to persuade him and get some really decent stuff out of him. I was practising two parts of our next test. The first was trot up the long side on the left rein, cross to the centre line and turn onto the right rein at the end. And vice versa of course. He was not going forwards and would not stay light in my hand, but was stiff on the straights and resisting the bends. This was possibly something to do with the re-appearance of the fourth blue barrel, which had gone winter walkabout and I recovered it from the bottom of the field the other day.  When I realised that I was getting nowhere with working trot, I slowed him right down to a jog and would not let him stiffen or drop behind the contact, and after completing the move a few times, he suddenly freed up and gave me a willing working trot.

The second move was canter the bend, cross the short diagonal with a give and retake over the centre line and counter canter the remainder of the long side. He did that really well. The first time on the left counter canter he changed behind, but the next time he cantered the bend in counter canter. In the test, the counter canter stops at the quarter marker, but if I practice it right around the bend it will make him much less likely to change when I don't want him to in the test. And apart from that a 20m bend at counter  canter is a really good exercise for him to supple and strengthen the canter.

I finished with uncurling the free walk on a long rein, and he did the best free walk I have ever had out of him. A willing reinback of 20 paces in a straight line, and we were done.

I need a snooze now after all this excitement.

C