I say "No, No, No!"

Ah, Max. From the sublime to the ridiculous. He put his well manicured hoof down today and told me to whistle for it.

Perfectly content in his box for me to do what I would (except for the undercarriage bit, which he only just tolerates), but not up for much else.

Walked to the school like a well mannered boy. Attentive, at my shoulder, paused for the gate, then through and "Max turn, head up" executed with absolute precision.

In the school? "Nah. Don't wanna."

We did some fine walking in loose, but I could see he was waiting for his chance to burst away from me and go all free stylee and uncontained.

I gave it a good try to focus his attention, but eventually capitulated and let him have his mucky roll, getting up and shaking a cloud of hair like PigPen from the Peanuts cartoon with his cloud of dust. I could just about knit another pony from the gatherings of Max's shed hair.

Carrot races? His former favourite?

"You go ahead and run lady. I like to see you sweat and I know you'll sit still eventually."

So we gave it up, did some clicker training of the things he knows well (Why did I ever teach him to say "No!" so emphatically?) and went back to his box for a chopped apple and pony nut feast (just a small one) and a tuck up for the field.

Mild today and tomorrow, but snow forecast for the weekend. Pah! English snow. It's not real snow.