One extreme to the other

What a gorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgeous day it is here today. Cold enough for ice on the roads, but clear and cool and minty. Bright sunshine, no wind and fantastic views across to Wales and up to the Pennines.

I rode Zip indoors to give the ice a bit of a chance to thaw off the road. They didn't grit until this morning, so it was a bit hairy out there first thing. It's clearer and clearer that Zip is going to be no easy horse to train. He isn't naughty, but he absolutely specicalises in tension, and he can hold it through thick and thin. I wouldn't say that I got a decent, relaxed, swinging walk in our entire half hour. He did make a good attempt at shoulder in and travers on each rein, which actually helped him to relax a bit. But it took a dozen transitions to trot before he would release his back and trot with some rythm. And then we had to stop as a reward of course :-% ! I reckon this tension is probably going to cause some pretty dreadful scores when we first start to compete, so I'm not expecting much of him next year, just to get familiar with going places.

Jazz was very interesting. We went out for a hack. At our normal place for a paddy, he seemed as if he was going to walk straight past. At the last moment he spotted that not only was there a black wheelie bin waiting for the dustbin men, but also a sack full of cardboard. What happened then is difficult to explain, but let me try. He seemed to be pretty violently trying to turn for home and run backwards when not allowed to turn, and he kicked out when I tried to make him go forwards. But .... underneath all the fuss there was an undercurrent of a feeling that he really did want to go past, only he didn't want to be the one to make the decision. Does this make any sense to you? The evasion was really quite severe, but somehow he didn't, deep in his heart of hearts, really want to turn for home, he wanted to go on up the hill (though an onlooker would never have believed that!). He just wanted ME to be the one who took the decision to make him go past.

Anyway, four minutes later, past he went, only yards later to come across a drystone waller sitting in his car taking a break. He has always hated seeing people in misted up stationary cars. The same thing happened, but he gave in very quickly. On the way back down, I took several minutes edging him closer and closer to the cardboard. Finally, he sniffed the cardboard sack, his own decision, and he actually turned an empty Bailey's Irish Cream box over with his nose. If I'm correct in my interpretation of what I felt, then this is a huge step forward - if he actively asks me to take responsibility then we are well on the way to solving the last of our problems.

Tomorrow we are going showjump training. The aim now is to get him jumping bigger things, so that when he meets a fence that he is concerned about it will look small to him and give him greater courage to jump it. That's the theory, anyway.

C.