Another cold, crisp start and a warm sunny but fly free (well almost) afternoon. I rode Chapiro in the school working on sharpening up the transitions. The downwards are actually too sharp and so we worked on smoothing them by staying in the rising trot and slowing it with the seat whilst keeping a little 'forwards' feel with the legs until a good walk transition was arrived at. To get him up and off into trot from walk more sharply I used some click/treat which always appeals to him. Some good work followed by a pootle down the track and round the bottom field. The video is from last week, just a few seconds of what's happening at the moment.

Moo and I went up through the hamlet for a hack and for the first time in a while he backed off. To be fair we met a generator running a plaster shooting nozzle wielded by a chap in full protective gear and full on NOISE! So I hopped off and led past and he was fine, got back on and no more problems even on our return when we had to come back past; of course we were headed home and he now knew it wouldn't eat him. To finish off we went down the bottom field for a nice long canter, he was very contained and stayed relaxed on a light rein :-)