So, after a couple of days off, Oakley had a good session, did some light longeing, good flatwork, and it was a very pleaseant June evening...except it's March, where it didn't belong, but overall a good day’s ride. At the end of an hour, Oakley was sweating in the unseasonable heat, so I decided a good end would be a walk up the trail: not muddy, but not baked hard, either. A pleasant evening twenty-minute cool-down walk up the hill.

Nope.

Oakley started playing scared -- his…

The final straw was the day in November when he did what the Spanish School in Vienna might describe as a "levade" but which we will more accurately call a "refusal" which involved a lot of rearing and dancing about on his hindquarters.

We had set a cavaletti on its lowest setting, a couple of centimetres off the ground, as a trot-pole. Oakley went over this, albeit with some urging. Then my coach took the pink scarf that someone left behind in the arena…