One man went to mow.

I took Zippy for a 35 minute hack up to the triangle and back. All the way there, he was in a funny mood and kept asking to turn around and go home. He was stilted, tippy-toeing and not at all forward. In fact a typical bloomin' three year old. I was just wondering if he was lame in both front feet when he started to trot up a long incline, and blow-me-down, the power I felt yesterday when I was on the arena came through again. He is going to be absolutely stupendous when he is fully grown!

I got to the triangle of grass where he normally turns for home, and decided to take him on up the road 50 metres or so to show him that we do not always turn at the same place. Get this! As soon as his feet hit a bit of road that he did not know, he was storming ahead wanting to go on and explore, and then didn't want to turn for home at all!

Good news is that the meadow across the road from the house has been mown and will have finished baling by tomorrow. So? Well, this is what I have been waiting for to canter Zippy. It will give me a reasonably flat, slightly inclined, strip of ground to canter about 300 metres up. At the end there is a very, very steep hill, so if he isn't tired by the time he gets there, that will stop him :-) I am really looking forward to feeling his canter!

With Jazz I am struggling with cracked heels. They started in all that wet and I didn't spot them in time - take a slapped wrist!! Daily application of sudocrem is finally getting on top of them. he doesn't get them in the winter because his heels dry out in the barn overnight. Zippy also has white back heels, but his are fine :-)

I have decided not to ride Jazz unless I really want to. To my surprise, I really wanted to. I felt like seeing if I could unlock that stilted walk from yesterday. I put my hands in the right place and left them there. I did walk serpentines with an 8 metre walk circle at every change of rein. That was fine until we went straight again, when everything collapsed into a rush! He was really irritated at being kept straight and did some footie-stamping to let me know :-) I managed to get some more progress with slower/faster walk. After some quiet persistence, I managed to get some very decent shoulder in and travers on each rein and a nice, free, swinging walk. And I enjoyed myself!

I don't work him for more than 20 minutes at a time without letting him stretch. He obviously works his muscles very hard, no matter what speed we are going at, and he really appreciates being allowed to reach out. Zippy is now developing a big crest just like Jazz is, but the problem is their manes! They both used to have manes that lay over beautifully. Now, I have two mohicans!! Can anyone tell me how to pull them or what to do to them that would make them lie over again, or is it just too bad if you have a powerful crest???

C.