Rest of the week

Saturday I bought some Saracen speed mix and Propell Plus for him to try and liven him up.

Tuesday we schooled and had a good run through of N38 ready for Saturday.  Happy with how he is working although still needs to be more forwards.

Wed - Tracey lesson - separate blog entry

Thur - gridwork.  Really worked on keeping him forwards round the corner into the grid.  Didn't do much - pole, x pole to raised pole to upright then pole, x pole, pole, spread finishing at around 3ft3.  He got it wrong once but still hopped through it putting very little effort in but making it feel easy.  I thought some jumps might wake him up a bit but he was still fairly lacklustre.

Fri - took him in the field and mostly just walked but cantered up the hill 3 times.  Not much enthusiasm there either although he's never excited by the field.

Sat - Area Festivals - separate blog entry.

Sun - 10 mile fun ride at Highclere - Vine and Craven Hunt.  Thought maybe this would get him a bit excited but was walking him along on the buckle after the first long canter and few jumps.  He did liven up in the middle a bit and got a bit arsey after catching up with some horses in front but nothing in the grand scheme of Monty behaviour.  And we had a canter across the field and he actually leant down on me and stuck his head down which is a Llewi thing but Monty always goes with head up pulling.  Bit disappointed with the jumps but TBH not sure I felt like jumping anything big on him as he kept putting in short strides and really wasn't taking me to them - having to use far more leg than I would usually on him.  Not sure if they were just too small for him to be bothered going on a bigger, longer stride or something wrong.  Ground was ok - only let him run and jump on the softer, well covered ground.  Just not sure what is up with him at the moment - he was full of it on hack over the ranges last week and pretty wild on our hack over Bourne Woods but generally he feels rather lacklustre and the new feed doesn't seem to have made any difference at all.  Need to decide about entering Regionals by Friday.

Back to see vet and farrier on Wed so will discuss with vet.

Had been thinking feet were looking good although LF still longer than RF.  Growing plenty of sole on both and I though frogs looked good and were in contact with ground well until got back from ride today and both front frogs just peeled off in one piece leaving really pathetic shrunken frog behind.  Very weird.