Lesson

I left work early yesterday feeling rather poo, and spent the afternoon sleeping, pausing only to cast a bleary eye over the quick fencing job Pheel's boys had done to make a corral for Mr T so that he wouldn't have to be confined to his stable for his prescribed rest period, but nor was he going to have room to charge about. Slept for a further 10 hours or so overnight, which seemed to do the trick, but for the second weekend running managed a relaxed morning just in case. I could get used to that, which of course is dangerous. Here at the scrag end of winter, everyone is tired and fed up, and the constant pissing rain does nobody any favours.

Arranged with M a lesson at short notice and wasn't at all sure it would go ahead on account of the aforementioned persistence, but resolved to go and work Q regardless. His opening gambit when I appeared with the head collar was to gallop off with his tail in the air and stand there snorting, then gallop back up the field to wait for me to trudge up to him through the soggy ground. He likes to do this every now and then and we have an unspoken arrangement that he will then stand and wait for me once he's done.The trouble of course with this is that it means his undercarriage is a mud slick and I have to spend ages hosing off his legs - and in this case, his belly. Meh - he wasn't expecting that! The look he gave me was quite splendid.

A quick lunge to warm up on account of not being ridden through the week, and he was about to start throwing some shapes again when he spied that Someone (T) had recently had a roll in the arena and would have got down on his knees there and then had I not been ready for it. He then spotted the mares grazing next to the fence and put on his best trot until I reminded him that he hadn't warmed up yet and proceeded more sedately. He was quite fine after that, producing some nice stretching work through his top line - until I got on at least, at which point he began frisking like a spring lamb (translation from the expression on the back his head: "look girls, look at me! Me!" but the application of laterals helped him regain his sense of decorum and attention to Mother, and we agreed that he could leave his testosterone excesses in a sack at the side of the arena for the duration.

We spent quite a bit of time in walk in various exercises on a circle between milling, shoulder in and straightness, slowly for the carrying effect and looking for him to extend his neck a bit further, or as Mandy put it, to have the brow band an inch further forward. This went well on the right rein but on the left rein not so easy. He kept wanting to swing his bum in or escape through the outside shoulder, so we addressed this by the slightest hint of outside bend and laying the whip against his left hip. When we had a good walk, up to trot, quite a collected one and repeating the exercises. I could feel my legs floating rather disturbingly rather than draping his sides; thinking both legs as outside leg and hugging as though for piaffe did help matters although at ties I felt my hips torque as though asking for travers and again the bum would come in. Arg. He was wriggling like a giant Iberian slug so the solution to this was more forwards and straight, which of course helped hugely and then we were able to collect a bit and get a better effort. At the end we managed collection and SI and a lengthening of the neck for a few strides - bloody tough and the expression on the back of his head was priceless, but we did it. Given fitness levels we finished there, very pleased.

I have noticed that the top line muscle is developing pleasingly in front of and behind the wither, so we must be doing something right.

Next, our much anticipated outing tomorrow, which will involve divesting ourselves of all evidence of what we do at home before we set off. Cryptic huh?