Last day of 2006

I fought with myself today to make myself give Jazz a day off. He needed a break but I really would have liked to ride him. In the end the only way that I could make myself do it was to stay in bed another hour reading a book :-) That make me an hour later than normal getting outside of course,but this pair simply don’t seem to care. They are so happy togeher munching haylage in the barn. It makes it a great temptation to be terribly lazy and I mustn’t get into the habit. It was nice for one day though.

I schooled Tia. A hack would have been nice but the wind was so strong I didn’t fancy it. The sun is shining now though and it’s quite a nice day, wind aside. ( I wrote that originally at midday. It's now 3pm and it couldn't be a lot more foul out there.) Tia was lovely. The canter is coming on every day, the constant repetition is doing a lot of good. Riding Jazz has given me a much better feel about when she is truly in front of my leg. Her speciality is to be veeeeeeerrrry subtly behind it, from where she cannot get a balanced canter strike off. It's not until you get a poor transition that you realise that she wasn't truly forward in the trot. But she got it today after only one bad one on one rein and two on the other.

I went to sleep thinking about that youngster (let’s call him Zippy - for some unknown reason his name is Zipper Lane, which seems an odd thing for a Dutch stud to call a horse ;-#) . I dreamt about him all night and woke up thinking about him. I have arranged to go and see him again on Tuesday and take a friend with me who has been briefed to point out any faults that I have missed. One of his forefeet turns out a tiny fraction, but that’s all I could see "wrong" with him apart from his total physical immaturity.

The only drawback I can see to him at the moment is that if anything were to stop Jazz competing next year when he is six, that Zippy would not be strong enough to take his place, or old enough to affiliate for eventing at all, even Intro. But heck, I’m talking 2008 here, not 2007 and that’s a long way off and it would be such fun to see him grow into the horse that I can see inside that weedy little fellow he is now. I talked to SH about it over lunch and he said "well you'd have to find another Tia, wouldn't you?" so he seemed totally unconcerned.

On the last day of the year I have to muse about what an odd year it has been horse-wise. First of all we had the absolute downer of Smartie going blind in January/February. Tia's arrival was shadowed by his being put down two weeks later. But over the next few months, with some decided ups and downs (including being the most difficult horse I have ever had to teach cross country) she turned into rather a little darling and I'm very proud of her. Then Tetley got a no-go verdict on his future soundness, after I had struggled for nine months to work him through his spavin issues. But finding him a new home also meant finding Jazz, and though I loved him totally, I now find it extraordinarily difficult to be upset that Tetley had to go when Jazz is the result. I have never had a horse who makes me smile quite so much, or who I look forward to riding quite so much. I do bless the day we came across him, and Superhubby for pushing me to up my stakes horse-wise and buy world class breeding. I look forward with huge excitement to seeing what he's capable of in 2007*.

C.

* some of it may make some fun reading. The worst year for most horses' behaviour is the fifth. They reach a level of strength when they can seriously test you and they are about the mental/behvioural development of a young man of 18-21. If Jazz was human I'm sure that this coming, spring when the grass comes through, he'd be out binge drinking and picking a fight outside the chippy at 2am in the morning.