Not past it after all.

I was so afraid that having hit my half century and come a cropper in a big and painful way, that I would never be able to get back to jumping. But I hadn't counted on George. The boy just won't take no for an answer! SH put all the fences up at around 2 feet, and away George went and jumped them all from a trot. Even the double, which is almost certainly the first time he has been faced with two fences in a row. Not to mention fillers, walls, spreads etc.

Then SH put some up to 2ft 9/10 and George was still great. He did tap a pole over the wall and the next time he didn't want to jump it. I reckon he probably hurt his leg doing it. So we put it down again and he jumped it fine. And then put it up again and he jumped it fine.

He is SO easy. He just loves jumping - he latches onto the fence and it would be really difficult to stop him jumping it! Just what I need right now. And my shoulder didn't bother me at all. Fantastic.

So ten minutes of our hour was gone and George had completed everything we came for. I got off and put my stirrups on the back stirrup bar and moved the moveable knee blocks back to schooling position and put my leathers down six holes. Then we practised some canter.

It's so obvious that he has never done it before, that it's quite touching. I was very pleased with him, because after about five minutes he realised what the aid for a canter transition was for, and that's the most difficult part of teaching canter. Once they will take the canter when asked, you can improve it. Getting them to take it is another thing altogether!

So George's canter is huge, unbalanced and a bit panicky. But he did improve enough to do several nice soft strides on each lead. It's a help that he responds very well to a verbal reassurance that he's doing the right thing There were a lot of "GOOOOOD boy George"'s going on :-) Another couple of weeks and he'll have a really decent basic canter.

General behaviour wise he was excellent. He is much more settled in a big arena and he did some very nice walk and trot work with a long flexible stride and a soft neck. He definitely loves an unjointed bit, his mouth is so much more "pliable" in it. He was temporarily frightened by my rustling coat when I tried to put it on (it was hailing when we went to leave the arena!). I rustled it under his nose and wiped him all over with it with no real problem at all after the first massive spook. He shook for about 30 seconds until he realised that it wasn't hurting him.

He is sticky to load because he wants to stay with the other horses, both at home and wherever we are. But a chifney and a very light touch on the bum with a whip sort that out and he goes straight in. From his reaction to a whip, he's definitely been beaten into lorries and/or sales rings the past :-(( . He is travelling well. He sweated a lot the first two times but now he does not sweat at all.

So all in all, he's priceless to me at the moment. What a find he was.

I rode Jazz for a quarter of an hour before we went. It was all the time I had, having been too lazy to get out of bed earlier, but I didn't want him to feel left out. He's very huggy-kissy at the moment, standing at the gate for an ear-pull while the others are going off down the field! He was lovely, and did some instant lateral work in walk and some beautiful elevated cadenced trot. Definitely worth making the effort to get him tacked up for :-)

What a good day. I feel as though I am back on track. Six weeks to George's first event - should be plenty of time :-)))

C

ps medical update is that the shoulder is almost fully mobile. I have some muscle tremor if I lift a full mug of tea, but that is disappearing slowly. And it aches a fair amount of the time, but not enough to make me take any painkillers. I think it's doing fantastically well for three weeks, don't you?