Gone with the wind

Sunday morning was cold and blustery with a cloudless blue sky. We had a private lesson from Liz in the school at 10.30. We hadn't warmed up when the lesson began and I was much more obstinate and slow than usual about going round and soft.

We worked on a circle with walk, halt transitions, leg yield, shoulder in, turn about the forehand and some trotting. I find turn about the forehand difficult.

The session was enlivened when someone went across the nearby field with a dog and set off the horses. Leo was in the next field and had a great time galloping about and bucking along the fence line where I was working. I couldn't resist looking at what was going on but didn't misbehave and join in as some others might have done. So the minus was my slowness in softening and distraction and the plus my calm behaviour.

After much prompting I started to go round in walk and for some of the time in trot. Our homework will be to practice achieving this more consistently.

Dad asked if we could run through Prelim 17 in the large arena. Time permitted us to do this once and we managed the manoeuvres accurately in walk, trot and canter. The second canter was quite well controlled. Liz thought we did the shapes reasonably well but weren't anywhere near being consistently round or soft, so we won't enter a Prelim test for now.

We then cooled off on a long rein and went in for grooming and to be put out to graze with Dibby.

We came in when it was getting dark and were groomed and given tea. Having worked so hard recently in our schooling, Dad was disappointed how it had gone and that our prospects of competing had disappeared, but as Scarlet O'Hara said in Gone with the Wind "Tomorrow is another day"; she might have been a cob.