Concrete!!!! Concrete???? :-0

Jonathan tells me that the mistake I made backing Zippy was to ride him on a soft surface. He says that if I had done it on concrete that he would have had more sense than to buck and put himself at risk. Well all I can say is - rather him than me :-0 ! Boy is he confident. He is quiet with the horses but utterly dominant. It's clear that they understand that he will take no nonsense at all and that they have no option but to do as they are told. But all the horses there were relaxed and happy, so they aren't feeling too pressured.

I watched him long rein a 3 year old who had been unhandled until 5 days ago. Then he long reined him up the road around the block, and back into his stable in an American barn. Then he took off the side reins and long reins, put on a headcollar and without shutting the door he vaulted onto him sidesaddle and began patting him all over while he sat there. He says he will have a saddle on him tomorrow and do the same, and be riding him in another couple of days.

He says he can take Zippy tomorrow because a stable came free yesterday as he was hoping. So Zippy is going tomorrow. Allan is so relieved, he doesn't trust me not to get back on him again. In fact he is so determined that he's not going to let me get back on him again that he has insisted on paying for Jonathan. I'm not arguing!

I was too lazy to ride this morning so no-one has done any work. I have booked a cross country schooling session tomorrow for Jazz where my aim is simply for us to enjoy ourselves.

It's very clear to me that Jazz has not only done grid jumping before, but completely enjoyed it (probably loose schooled in Holland, which I know they do with very young horses over there). Unfortunately, while that means he jumps brilliantly in a grid when his placement at the fence is set for him, it has not transferred to jumping single fences or related distances without placing poles, which I now need him to do.

I have the impression that he has learnt to jump with a "crutch" and now finds it more than usually difficult to jump without one. I've been aware for a long time that pure showjumpers in the UK tend not to use grids, and I'm thinking that at last I have found out why - that some horses actually find it more difficult to give them up than if they had never had them in the first place. I think that Jazz is one of those, he got set in a model that jumping did not need him to use his brain to work out where to take off, so now he finds it hard to be asked to do just that. I don't think that the answer for him lies in more grids, which he finds ridiculously easy, both mentally and physically, but in single and related distance fences which are small enough for him to get his stride wrong without it being a disaster or inviting a run out. So that will be our approach for a few days and we'll see how we get on.

C