Side tracked.

It was raining this morning but not spectacularly cold. So I was most surprised that the boys were desperate to come in. And even more surprised that George appeared to be chilled to the marrow and was shivering. He's well covered and a good doer and wearing a rug, so the last horse I would expect to shiver. I think a lot of it must be nerves and remembering being cold, wet and very hungry before he came to England. He arrived in August last year in a very thin state, so he must have had some terrible experiences though the winters if he was that bad after a summer.

I gave up on trying to get him to relax and settle on the bit today. I put side reins on, to let him work to those instead of fighting my hands. It was such a relief just to be able to concentrate on sitting relaxed and asking for forward movement and lateral bend. It worked too. He did try to rear once with the restriction of them, but socked himself in the teeth and quickly thought better of it! He was markedly better behaved from that point on too, as if he had learnt a big lesson about submission. He finished in a lovely relaxed walk serpentine, with loops in the sidereins. Good progress, I'll be using them again.

Jazz had the day off because I thought it was going to rain all morning and didn't want to ride him indoors again, and consequently committed to an early lunch with SH. When the weather turned nice and I could have gone out, I thought it would be unfair to change my mind at such short notice.

Zippy, I didn't have space to mention yesterday, has had a rather big abscess. He has a split across the whole width of one heel in a front foot. And yet he has never been lame! What a tough beastie he is, as well as a kind one.

C