Soap has come back in after his end of season 3 week holiday with Jack soon to follow suit, and Dustry is now turned out 24/7. Both seem to have adjusted to the change in regime well, but Soap had to have a serious buzz cut before I could begin any proper work with him as he had turned into some sort of furry yeti! This is him at ‘maximum fluff’ and then‘après clip’ which he has accesorised with lots of mud!
After his clip I had a lesson with my dressage instructor Elizabeth Peerless and we worked on getting Soap to work more over his back, work forwards to the contact instead of keeping his neck in one position and just ‘looking pretty’ sitting behind the contact. Liz was really pleased with him and said he was ‘very nice to work with’ which made me smile. The clocks have changed so daylight is no longer an option and as a result Soap’s work load is less than during the season so I have been running to keep my fitness up, and recently completed my first 10k in just over an hour. It was a real challenge but very satifying, however still not a patch on going XC!