There comes a time ...

There comes a time when you just have to ignore the rain and ride anyway. It was so long since I had ridden Jazz that we ignored the big black clouds and went onto the arena. (I was amazed it was rideable with the amount of rain we've had and the fact it's got no drainage, but it rode well.) Sure enough, it rained lightly but persistently for the whole time. I'm not exactly soaked but I'm certainly pretty damp!

He started off OK and did some creditable attempts at trot half pass once we had warmed up. He found it difficult to understand what I wanted when I was trying for lengthened strides, but I did manage to get him to lift his shoulders and punch his front feet out a little right as I was about to settle for "9 for effort, 4 for achievement". Final score 6 for achievement.

I tried to finish on a couple of canter changes. I shouldn't have been so blase about it, because he was definitely out of practice. The right to left change was fine but the left to right wasn't good. He kept on changing in front and not behind and continuing disunited. I focussed on sitting up and not leaning forward in the transition, and using a flick of the whip as well as the leg aid, we got a couple of half decent ones and stopped.

We were both glad to get out of the rain.

C

ps Radar is still "just about" lame with stuff packed inside his foot. He will be sound to ride out on the road tomorrow, and then back to work on our jumping and fitness, I hope.