Patient

The cool grey weather continued. Since we had not ridden for several days Dad felt obliged to exercise this morining and took me in the school at about 11.00. It was drizzling lightly for most of the time.

We went through our warm up routine with walk on a long rein, medium walk, halt transitions, some smallish circles, shoulder fore/in and leg yield going up into trot. We practised Prelim 17 twice. I accomplished most of the shapes but wasn't consistently round and my canter is different each time. On the positive side my strike-offs were correct - which shows improvement.

Dibby joined me after twenty minutes and also pracised the test. As the weather worsened we came in to dry off and have an apple and some minties.

We spent the afternoon grazing and came in for grooming and tea after 5.00. There had been some very heavy downpours in the late afternoon, rather than the showers forecast.

Dad said Dibby and I had been entered for Prelim 17 at Solihull tomorrow, but with the way the group canter went last week, the cancellation of our lesson on Sunday and the loss of several days practice due to rain this week, it looks as though we may be well-advised to withdraw. Dad is sad because it would have been our first Prelim test -and one indoors on a long arena, but knows you have to be ready for these things. We shall just have to see. Cobs are patient - especially me.