In the summertime deedndoodada ....

It was HOT today. I was tuckered out by the time I'd ridden two. They enjoyed a bath when they were done, too. Though George copped a complete wobbler at the idea of being touched just under his chin with the head of the shower. He ran backwards but it was on a stretchy hose so I just followed him. He even reared and struck out with both front feet. Then he tried to push me over. Now that IS naughty behaviour, but I ignored it. When none of his tantrums had worked, I touched his chin again and he was fine. There was no water coming out of it - I'd turned that off long before! He is a very strange creature the way he has these terrible panics, heart thumping, snorting ... and then works out that there's nothing to worry about after all.

Anyway, because of the weather we were outside, and it is an awful lot easier to get George to relax in the bigger space. Basically you can let him have a little panic as he gets out of balance, run for it for a few paces and then you pull him up and rebalance and he sorts himself out. At present he can/will only trot two or three strides until he needs another half halt to stop him tipping and running, but it really wasn't too bad. I also had to hold my hands terribly high to start with, keeping them level with where he had put his mouth. When he realised that sticking his nose in the air was not releasing the contact, he soon discovered that life was an awful lot easier if he brought his head down and his neck round and shoulders up.

By the time we got good trot transition on each rein (as opposed to a mad dash into the faster pace), and he was trying hard to maintain his rythmn and bounce for me, he was very sweaty with the heat and humidity, so we stopped. I figure that the canter will improve as the trot improves, whether we practice it or not. And he was too tired to start any meaningful attempts at canter without risking ruining all our good work on the trot.

Jazz was lovely, but very strong. He was missing the support of the walls and pulling at my hands if I let him. But we did some super work. He actually got a fair attempt at a flying change on each lead. He was late behind, but corrected. This is the first time I have ever managed to teach a horse flying change (I've only tried with one other, Tetley, whose counter canter is so good that he won't do it!). I had to ride a figure of eight and emphasise the change of direction. If I did a smaller loop back to the track instead, the angle of change of direction was too shallow to persuade him to do it and he counter cantered intead.

Then we tried a bit of trot lenthening and I think that we had a huge improvement today. I leg yielded out of the corner (to get the hocks under) into the straight and then asked, and today we definitely had some shoulder lift as well as a longer step for a couple of strides. So he is making great progress and I'm chuffed with how he is trying to work with me.

I turned all three out then, and watched while they grunted and groaned and scrubbed themselves in the best patch of dirt they could find :-)

C