Radar is less lame today but that isn't necessarily good news with a pus in the foot. He could even come completely sound, with it having made some space for itself somewhere, only for it to run out of space again and make him even more unsound before it breaks out. We'll have to see how it progresses.

Jazz was interesting. I rode around quietly for a while assessing how he is different at home from at Sonia's. He is definitely looking for things to get upset about at home, where he doesn't do it nearly so much at her place. Then what happens is that I try to hold him in to control him, instead of allowing his paces to flow forwards. At Sonia's she tells me what to do to keep him moving and focussed. At home, I tend to use the rein too much if he is not working well. So I shall work at that in future, looking for other ways to correct him than using the bit.

He did one huge rear today and it was completely him not me. We were cantering a circle and he tried to shy away from a railway sleeper which has been out there for a couple of sessions now. I bent him the right way again and he stopped and reared. Bad boy, but it's how he takes out his frustration that he can't get away from me in the double bridle. There's no doubt whatsoever that he would have taken me off the arena in a snaffle today.

Anyway, today we worked on lengthening the trot, and he is beginning to understand. I find that he gets it best out of shoulder in, which lifts his shoulders preparatory to lengthening the stride. He sometimes breaks into canter, and Sonia told me to keep my leg on, bring the canter back to trot and immediately ask for him to go on again. This technique is definitely getting it through to him that I want to cover more ground, but not in canter. I have a feeling we are on the point of a breakthrough with medium trot.

Then we worked on counter canter, holding it through 20 metre half circles and back onto the long side without changing. He was perfect.

So we finished with some flying changes. True canter around the short side and across the diagonal, change, true canter the short side and cross the diagonal, walk don't change. He did two from right lead to left lead, on the aid. On the left lead to right lead he was having more trouble. He wasn't staying in my outside hand on the bend so he was not perfectly balanced enough across the diagonal. I realised that his mind was on approaching the sleeper up the far end, so I changed ends. He got one pretty well, late behind. And then one absolutely perfect, which was a great note to end on.

C