22nd August, 2013 Black and White Rules

Little Jazz continues to remind me of an Arab oscillating from precious to precocious in her attitude to work. Struggling to get her to move forward in the field we decided to take her out on the tracks so that she could see the point of the work we were doing. Here she is striding out with Charly on board. We'll get there. There are no black and white rules in training.

Isaac, who has been an angel throughout all of his training went off home again after his two weeks with us. This morning we started to ask him to listen to the bit and just acknowledge that we were asking for something. He immediately softened and dropped his head, took a step back or moved to the left or right as requested.

"Just to say a big thank you for all the work you, ( and helpers) have done with Isaac. I'm so pleased with him and all that he's learnt while he's been at "summer school"!" LB

Charly brought his daughter up to the fields this afternoon and she had a lesson with Petra. Even though she was on the lead rein she was able to ask Petra to move forward with just a breath out and thinking walk, to halt by breathing out and thinking halt, and to back up by imagining Petra lifting up from her withers and moving her front feet. Not bad from someone who was on a big and responsive horse for the first time.

After that it was off to see a pig called Sophie - don't worry, I'll explain later....