What a lovely day

What super weather this morning! Bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky. Warm too, the boys are back in thin rugs and probably don't really need them at all. I put Zippy out with George. It's a toss-up whether George is more upset to be alone than Jazz - I had to go and fetch him in last night and he was so relieved to see me. On balance, I'd rather Zippy was getting rid of some energy outside.

Jazz's pulses are still up, which they should not be after two days indoors, so I think we have a problem either with the haylage or the omeprazole. Zippy gets pulses when the grass is too much, and he has none now, so I am hoping that it's not the haylage, because I have a whole winter's worth outside :-0 It's logical that the omeprazole would affect Jazz, because it is reducing the acid production in his stomach, and that may be affecting his digestion in the hind-gut. Whatever, he certainly shouldn't be exposed to grass as well while I am away, so he's in the barn until Friday afternoon now. He has a radio, which he likes and stays near :-)

I took him out for a ride this morning. I told SH to come and find me if I wasn't back in three hours! Jazz made four VERY serious attempts to go home within the first mile. We had not even reached the point where he kept me waiting for 50 minutes last time he was out alone. He was looking and looking for things to make an excuse about. I was wondering just how long it was going to take to get him past last time's bad spot when I heard Sonia's voice. When I had told her how well the new regime of keeping my leg off and my hand steady had been, she said "Maybe it will transfer to hacking". So I put him in a dressage walk and for the rest of the ride I had no problems keeping him going forwards at all.

This is so counter-intuitive for me. Who would even thing that a horse would respond to "hands on legs off" and go forward past things that they fear. It worked so well that I was able to take him right up to a four-story chockablock-full ten-wheeler sheep transporter with its engine running. He would happily have gone past it too, but I wanted to turn to go home.

It takes an enormous mental effort to hold his head firm and take my leg off when I feel him backing off something. It doesn't seem possible that you can hold his head in place and expect him still to go forward. But time and again it worked as if he has learnt the submission from schooling, and given the same signals outside he is finally prepared to give up control to me. Don't get me wrong, he is still not an easy ride, but this way he is under control and that's all I need. While I agree completely with Nicola that he will always have it in him to be stupid at times, I am quietly hopeful now that this ride today was a very big turning point for us.

C