NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Oh I had a HORRIBLE shock this morning. Jazz slightly drags his left hind toe when he starts work. He's always done it, but this can be a sign of a problem of course. I was grooming him today and found a hot, spavin-like lump on the inside of his hock. I pressed it and there was no reaction, as is normal for a spavin. I felt as sick as a pig. Jazz's dressage career was disappearing down the plughole as fast as my bathwater did.

I called SH and we went out onto the road to do a flexion test. I put a tight hock hold on for a whole minute and he trotted Jazz away. Not a sign of lameness at all. If he had spavin, he'd have been limping for twenty yards. As we took him back to his stable a beam of full sunlight fell on the inside of his hock - and showed a very faint mark in the middle of the lump - a speedycut mark from the other foot. The daft bugg*r had only kicked himself messing around in the field!

Talking of messing around, do anyone else's horses try to twitch each other? I have never seen it before, but this pair grab at each others lips or chin, twist and put a twitch on each other! The one with the twitch starts getting those half-closed eyes as the endorphins flood their brain - it is very odd to see them doing it in the field.

Radar has gone up a HUGE step in his training. As always after not schooling for a few days, he was pretty full of himself. But for the second time in a row, he trotted without any throwing himself around for ten minutes first. In fact he was so good I tried for canter and he did some really quite acceptable 20m circles on each rein too. It only took him three or four months longer than expected, but we can't all be Einstein, can we :-))))) ?

C