More winter

More minus four. Not a snowball's chance in hell (geddit ??) of getting the lorry out of the yard and up a quarter of a mile of ice to the main road, so my lesson was off for the second week running :-(((

I did a clipper training session with Jazz. The frist two times I turned the motor on, he broke the clips on two lead ropes - they just snapped easily in the cold air. Then I put a longer rope on and held him with it threaded through the tie-ring instead of tied to it. He immediately stopped pulling back and let me run the clippers and then let me clip bits of him too - right up under his throat too. He had appeared to be genuinely frightened, until he wasn't actually tied any more and then he was almost calm. What a silly boy he is.

I did ride, because I felt that I "ought" to. I had much more fun than I expected to, which just goes to show that you have to get on and DO stuff even if you don't feel much like it. I did some walk to canter with Zip, followed by half a dozen strides of canter and a transition to trot. He baulked a couple of times, bucked sharply once, but on the whole I feel that he's responding to discipline better than he was a couple of weeks back.

I did some canter to walk with Jazz - after taking some time to get him off his forehand and onto his hocks in trot. I managed the best canter/walk transitions that he has ever done on each rein. This is a result of being able to slow the canter right down, but keep him up in front of me and sat on his hocks. It's obviously physically very difficult for him, but he is developing the strength to do it better and better.

They've been out in the snow all day, but looking at the tracks they've made, in several hours they haven't moved more than ten feet away from the piles of haylage that I put out. They aren't stupid, are they!?

I'm hoping for a thaw by the weekend or hunting will be out for another week.

C