Rode Harry out with you this morning, he was all good, prob a little tired from yesterday. So I concentrated more on watching you and Giant ;).

Try and really set things up to go right and don't let even the tiniest thing go past. Going down that stony path he was looking into every path to the left that lead off it and drifting into them, that would have been a good opportunity to correct him and get it out of his head.

Turning into the water is still the same thing, if you let him do it once hes going to try it again and each time he does it its going to be harder and harder to stop him. The first time he does it its will be a sort of "I wonder if I can just...", the fifth time he does it is going to be "I'm going". A lot easier to stop him the first time and tell him off so he doesn't try it again.

Sometimes its best just to avoid the problem so it doesn't get worse, you could have ridden up on the sand to avoid him turning into the water, or halted when a wave came towards him and then ridden him up towards the sand dunes so that he couldn't turn into the wave, but go were you've told him. Then you can start testing him to see if he'll stay parallel to the water for you, if not, go back and fix it.

I know hes strong - thats why you have to outsmart him instead of fight it. I also know its frustrating when you just want to have a nice ride, but you have to loose the frustration, it doesn't help either of you. You asked me the other day if I get angry (lol), but perhaps this is were it comes from... I learnt to ride on ponies that would try and buck me off every single day, I used to get very angry at them, but somewhere along the way I seem to have managed to loose all that (for the most part anyhow), I learnt over and over that it doesn't help. Sometimes you just have to stop and get a hold on yourself and focus on fixing the problem so that the next ride is better.

- I didn't tell you any of this while we were out there cos I wanted to see what was going on without disturbing you ;).

A couple of things on hacking out with others as well, doesn't matter so much with me on someone like Mate, but with other horses and riders... Always let the other person know what your going to do, don't just trot off and leeave the other person behind. Same at gates, always wait until the other person has got back on and sorted themselves over before you ride off. And when your riding infront, esspecially if your trotting and cantering just look back every now and again to make sure the other person is still with you.

I jumped Giant this afternoon, he was cool :). In our warm up I came down pretty hard on all his little habits... getting him properly infront of the leg and going forwards, and no letting him get that shoulder out, really making him turn properly. No excuses for anything.

Then all the work is the same, just with jumps inbetween. Hes getting a bit better at going forwards to and away from the jump and hes staying nice and straight for me. Still sometimes hes really lazy and just doesn't pick up, he hits it and doesn't even react. Thats the only thing he does that annoys me, usually they'll hit it and learn, he just does the same thing again, but that may change and they go up and he starts trying a bit harder.

And I did put them up again a little bit and he was better, I wanted to go up more but he slipped coming around as they were so I left it.