Shock news update ......

I can't wait to hear your reactions to this :-)

I have been musing about the fact that we are rapidly approaching a year to when Tetley let me know he couldn't jump because of his hocks, mid September last year. And that he came out stiff today and worked sound in about 20-25 minutes. He wasn't lame, but he was stiff, and I wouldn't want to do any serious jumping yet with him. So I have to face it that there is a possibility that he will not be sound for next season either.

Meanwhile, Tia is producing work of a standard which is WAY in excess of anything I EVER thought she would be capable of - power, rythmn, suspension, bend, submission. She has, in the last few days, realised that I am in charge and that she is better off working with me than trying to get round me. She is the cutest mare to look after, really sweet and cuddly. OK, I don't like hacking her out and I have to modify my schooling to allow for her temperament. One I can do, the other I can avoid completely.

I doubt if Caddy is going to be strong enough to go out more than once a month, if that, in his 5 year old year. He's just a baby. (He had a day today when "straight" was the issue. He is definitely both lazy and arrogant, those two dominant traits of his personality are coming out now. "I'm good and I KNOW I'm good", is his attitude. I like it! Today I flicked him to sharply with the whip and he responded with a very sharp little buck - just one though. He offered me a truly awful trot, flat and lifeless, with a pretty head carriage. I managed to persuade him that the head carriage wasn't going to satisfy me and that I wanted shoulder and back movement, not just an arched neck. We got some nice stuff and stopped as a reward.)

SO, to wrap this up, IF, and it's a fairly big IF, I got to April next year and was ready to start the season, my last before I turn 50, and Tetley is not ready, how would I feel if I had sold a horse who I know can do it, looks great, really moves and jumps, can do it all barefoot, and is improving by leaps and bounds? Pretty p***** off I should think! I would never be able to replace her directly with something of the same experience in April for what I could sell her for this autumn. And the uncertainty of a new horse and what it might or might not do could ruin another season for me when I am running out of time ......

I think I'll keep her! I can manage three for the winter if I don't ride them all every day. I can compromise with her over the schooling she finds difficult, because we have almost cracked everything she needs for a novice test now. I don't like hacking her, she doesn't stride out or appear to really enjoy being out alone. But Tetley does, and she doesn't mind constant schooling, where he does. So between them they make one horse. And Caddy makes the second.

Now, what do you think of that?

C