Crunch time tomorrow

Tia is booked for the Summer farm ride tomorrow. The first part of it and a substantial portion in the middle will be new to her. If we are to have any hope at all of not being eliminated at Rodbaston next week, she needs to start attacking fences and not stopping to look at them. In the competition we are allowed three refusals. At the 4th we are eliminated and must leave the course.

So I will allow her the first fence as a "practice fence" and she can try it until she is fluent over it. But from then on I will be trying to get her to jump without looking: to trust me and GO. It will be a really big test for her and we'll see what happens.

She is a tinker with her food - she will not eat more than 2 kilos a day. Some days I manage to persuade her to eat more, but the following day she will eat less and even it out again. You can see her ribs, though individually each one has a layer of fat on it. The trouble is, she's too darned fit!

Tetley has done a road hack today and seemed fine. He has a huge pulse in his near fore though, which is a sure sign that something is going on in there. But he seems perfectly happy on it even over a very rough surface which I would expect to have had him hobbling if it was an abscess. Finger's crossed it's just a bruise or the bit of thrush I found in his frog.

Tia's had the day off - we went to Port Sunlight where the Lever Brothers built a town for their soap factory workers. It was a lovely place.

What is it with teh weather - May and they are back in winter rugs :-0 !!!

C.

Tetley triangle and back. Sound. Query totally happy ? - dropping his back coming home but no bit chomping or sweating (signs of discomfort for him) so possibly just keen to get back to Tia.