Drove down to Heatherbrae to see Pan and Emma this afternoon and drove into a gale on the coast! Luckily the indoor arena is angled to avoid the swirling winds and the duo had the good fortune to be the very first to ride on Heath's new indoor surface, a springy compound of sand and "felt"? In fact we had to then move to the outdoor arena so the surfacing crew could "Roll' the and laser-level it again.
Outdoors the trees were taking a battering in the gale which had been blowing for about 4 hours already, but Paeon wasn't reacting to the conditions at all.
This was his first experience in this arena and it's interesting to note that, in any new circumstance he's very steady; I think he hands over his trust to his rider and getting on with the job is his 'comfort zone'! Anyway, it was impressive to find him very steady in the conditions whilst the two older, more experienced horses also working outdoors, spooked at whatever they could find to spook at!!
He's maintaining good progress; the canter work is almolst as regular as the trot, and he's responding well to the suppling exercises, moving off the leg, switching flexion from renvers to travers in trot, holding some shoulder-in in canter.
The cancellation of last Sunday's jump club has changed plans a bit: Denman event in a couple of weeks, may be too big an event for a first outing, so Jump Club at Maitland on Sunday 20th looks to be his first outing.
Hopefully the rain will stay away!!
Emma gave him another jump, at night, indoors, on Monday, and says he loves it! I'm going to try to see a jump training next week...but it will probably be about 10pm..after the dressage schooling is finished and the jumps can be set up!!!
Back home, about 50km inland, there are black clouds overhead and there's a bit of a wind just starting to get up. The first snows have fallen in the Snowys...in time for the June (Queen's Birthday) Long Weekend..so the temperature has plummeted!!
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