Well you could knock me down ......

....... with a feather. Tetley is sound today. Or as sound as dammit on a 10 metre circle in the barn. And he seems to have lost his sensitivity to stones. I don't know what that was about yesterday, but I can only guess at some weird inflammatory withdrawal symptom from stopping the Devil's Claw. I did phase it out slowly, but perhaps not slowly enough. Whatever, he loose-lunged fine so I rode him and his work was absolutely great. His slow walk/quick walk exercise was particularly smart, with the change from a long raking walk stride to a short collected walk stride done with no rein aid at all, all from my seat :-)

Caddy was lovely again. Easier in the walk today but not so easy in the trot. But when he gets it, he gets it. He was much more reactive to the aids today and he has also stopped grinding down to a halt in the walk. He now maintains whatever pace he is put in until he is told to change it. He learns very quickly, and retains his learning from day to day. I think in a month or so he will actually be quite sharp. Meanwhile, he's the easiest ex-racer I have ever retrained.

I did his back feet to match his front feet today, with a toe bevel. Again the toe came off without exposing any pink in the white line. And he worked really well on the front ones - yesterday he took the odd mis-step from time to time as if his near fore had trodden on a sharp stone (indoors on sand and dust!). That problem was nowhere to be seen today so that's good. He has leg yield down to a fine art, and shoulder in better than should be possible at this stage. He's a clever, well-balanced boy and no mistake. He seems to be naturally well tuned to the leg aids. He won't ever have been taught that as a racehorse, so it must be innate. After all, my legs aren't even in the same place as a jockey's would have been :-)

Tia produced some fantastic trot, with real rythmn and suspension and punch. She must have looked stunning from what I could feel :-) She got there after going through a spell of resistance and "don't tell me what to do!". You can always tell when she's about to give you wonderful work - she blows through her nose. That means "OK,have it your own way, here's what you want" and the stuff that follows is always superb! I stop then, so she makes the connection between submission and ending work. She is also getting markedly more capable on stones. In fact I led her across some bad patches of tarmac and concrete today and never noticed her stride shorten once.

It is so cold here today that the two thin skinned ones have coats on. We've certainly lost summer for the moment, but I can't help it, I prefer this to temperatures up in the 30's. Sorry if you are a sun-worshipper yourself :-)

I'm not even going to LOOK for a molehill today, life's too short!!

C