Mr Needy

Max is OK, but he's still a bit listless and stiff in his neck, and his back, too, I think.

I took him into the school this afternoon for some long-lining. We weren’t ambitious, about half an hour or so, just walk and trot transitions and some quite nice turns. He was moving OK but there was no real spark or eagerness, and no mischief. I missed it!

I took everything off him to see if he’d roll, and he did, but for the first time ever, he couldn’t roll over. Which makes me question his back, but thinking about it, it’s probably still due to his neck feeling sore.

After that we did a tiny bit of loose work, just to get him into a little canter on both reins so I could see if he was moving OK. He was.

Mostly though, he was just a Clingon. He’s always been a fairly affectionate horse, but he really just seemed to want to stand with me and have his face stroked.

I took him back to the yard and tied him up outside his stable (which had been cleaned in our absence) and decided to try and entice him into carrot stretches with an entire carrot.

I got him to stretch back a very little bit on his left side, but he was very funny. He'd try, then he sighed and looked away, dejected. Then he put his head between his front legs for the “bow” stretch instead.

"I do this one, ‘kay? Where is carrot? No, not stretching back to there, stretching to here, ‘kay?"

How am I meant to resist that?

He was almost back to full stretch back on his right side, which was nice to see, though he lifted his right hind up and hovered it, like that somehow made it easier.

I do think it's the flu jab. He's OK in himself, although a little needy. We all get like that when we're feeling a bit off though, don't we?

What if it’s the marmite?! Could it be the marmite?