A bit of a headache

Literally. I don't know whether it's because of the changing weather but I have had a humongous headache all day today. I somehow got through my morning lessons without banging my head against the wall. The pain eased around lunch time but returned again soon afterwards.
A young horse I am involved in schooling had finally understood lunging and we had a fantastic session today. Last week I changed his bit to a loose ring double jointed snaffle (from variety of single jointed he was in previously) and he is 80% quieter in the mouth and steadier in his head carriage. Although he had been backed and worked under saddle for a while he had a mega set back several weeks ago when he reared and fell over backwards. I saw it and think the reason he flipped was that there wasn't anything else he had left to do - he doesn't really buck or bronc and he hated his bit he was in at the time. You could see it coming but the rider was too inexperienced to deal with it. He is a lovely horse to handle and there is no bad bone in his body - can you tell I have a soft spot for him? ;)
His major problem lies in acceptance of the rider's hand so we took him right back to basics and it seemed to have been a good decision. If I am doing him next week I will lunge him in a chambon (he really needs to stretch through the topline and a chambon is my all times favourite to help with this). If that goes well I might hop on him again and see if all the lunging is helping with his ridden work.

My last lesson of the day was a xc for very eager teenagers - all the horses jumped really well and you could tell they liked a little change from 20m circles of arena work.

I am at home now with my headache still here so I think I will just collapse on bed with a nice horsey DVD (my dear mum recorded Global Champions Tour from Valkenswaard,Holland for me) and a slice of apple pie!