The engine wouldn't start.

Not the lorry's. Jazz's. He warmed up fine. He behaved superbly in a complete throng of horses milling around the warm-up area. He jumped the warm-up fences easily, but they were tiny. Then it was our turn. He was sticky at the little birch fence that was number 1 but he jumped it. Number two was a small log, completely innocuous. Would he jump it? Nope. I finally hit him to make him jump it at the third attempt. Then number three, a small suspended log over some stones at the base he completely refused to consider, until I walloped him on the approach and he staggered over on the fourth attempt. Already eliminated at fence three. I was not pleased!

Fence four was a very big log. I put him at it but he refused so I forced him to jump the smaller novice fence by the side. Five, six and seven were complex and twisty with poor approaches in a wood. They were no problem. Eight was tiny and he went to refuse and I forced him over. Nine was a bench where he stopped twice before he would jump it and then did it easily. Ten was a rails, fine. Eleven a pallisade, he stopped once. Twelve a rails, thirteen a very big hedge - he flew it! Fourteen a coffin with the middle ditch full of water - loads of horses eliminated including the one in front of me - Jazz? No problem, straight through! Fifteen was a step and tyres, sixteen another rails with some funny stuff on the ground line, seventeen a pallisade, eighteen railway sleepers "into space" (a drop on landing) nineteen a log, twenty a flower bed, twenty one another one on a related distance and the last fence was a stack of black drainage pipe under an arch made by the arms of a pair of JCBs. When I walked the course, I honestly didn't think I'd get him near the last, but he was accepting my word by now, and did it at the first approach.

Basically, he doesn't want to start, but once he has got properly underway he has no problem jumping at all. He has begun to accept my word for it that he has to jump even if he doesn't really want to, and he is finding things that would have been too complex a few weeks ago very easy. Size is of no issue, the hedge really was a decent fence and so were a number of others. We just have to crack this problem with not wanting to start. I would blame leaving the collecting ring, but he does it in training too. I think the reason that he started the first four fine at Draycott was that he hated the warm-up fence. So we got our early battle over with in the collecting ring.

SH and I are currently devising the training strategy which will convince him he has to start when he's told to. Then I am going to try and squeeze another xc session in before Marchington on Sunday. I am disappointed that he didn't perform better, but he really is progressing and you can feel what a superb time we are going to have when he sorts himself out. It feels agonisingly slow, but I know that we are really getting somewhere now.

C