Not making it too easy

Saturday morning was dry and sunny. Dad took me in the school on my own, since Dibby had another day off. Dad saw me notice Dibbs mutual grooming with Cricket in the field, which he thought made be a little irritable and he may have been right.

We loosened up on a long rein and with some trot and practised the first part - all that Dad could remember - of Prelim17. The trot was reasonably fluent, although rather on the forehand and not really round and the canter wasn't very good at all. The upwards transition was slow and uncontrolled and the canter wasn't sustained; it really had no positive aspects at all. Dad's initial reaction was to forget about entering Prelim 17 at Solihull on 19th. October, but I guess we shall have to see. It's clear we also need an individual lesson, but unfortunately diaries don't match up until 21st October, so we shall have to keep on practising alone.

After the messy Prelim 17s, we went back to the Walk and Trot and Prelim 18 with a little more success. Dad did find my canter a bit forward-going today and will have to work on using his seat more to get me to come back to him and return to a controlled trot. Now the weather is turning more autumnal some of the horses on the yard have become sharper and so it's just to be expected and yet another thing on which to work.

We came in after an hour and I went out to graze without a rug until 4.00. When both Dads came to bring us in we were on the far side of the field and both cantered over together in a race. I won. Dad thought he wished my canter had been that good in the school today. Sometimes cobs don't like to make it too easy for them.