All The Kings' Horses

 Monday, August 3rd -It was most certainly a Monday! Gia must’ve enjoyed her weekend and didn’t really seem to want to go to work on Monday. Gia was quite spicy and had quite a few bucks in store for me. I had some choice words for her. Typically, when Gia gets to work, she stops bucking, at least it slows down. But, once in a while, I think Gia ponders her eventing career and wants to give broncing a try. We were towards the end of our work, but I was starting to get tired and opted to choose safety. I hopped off and put Gia to work on the lunge line. Once I was solidly on the ground, I could push Gia to keep moving. Because she had been a bit naughty, I was looking for her to give me a sign of submission (lick, chew, head down, sigh, etc.). Once she did this, we finished for the day. I opted to call in back up for Tuesday! Tuesday, August 4th - After talking to Heather on Monday, we decided it would be best for her to come and watch me ride on Tuesday. While we had been discussin...

Gia has definitely been getting used to our work the past two weeks. I do think she is getting a bit bored and when she gets bored, Gia finds a way to entertain herself. The challenge for me (Danielle) is to keep her interested and focused on me without allowing my body to react.  Wild horses in Corolla For the week of July 20, 2026, we did a lot of the same work where I ask Gia to move her shoulder over to the left and to stretch over her back. When I am able to achieve that at the walk, I then encourage her to keep the stretch and pick up a trot. I noticed some tension returning to our work, but I was not able to pinpoint the cause. What I did feel is Gia was pulling me towards jumps or trying to speed up without me asking. While we are of course working on getting Gia to jump and canter again, it needs to be on my terms, not hers. I noticed that tracking left especially, Gia was trying to speed up. My goal for the week was to try to keep my body balanced and to work her through ...

 Well, here is another three in one blog. This blog entry is all about the letter C: catching up, consistency, and a little CANTER! June 29th thru July 17th - As I stated in the last blog post, I did ride Gia in a lesson with Heather. She did fantastic! Heather had me work on getting her to stretch over her back and move her shoulder to the left. Generally, Gia allows her shoulder to fall to the right. This causes her to be quite crooked and the faster she moves, the bigger the problems can arise. We worked on moving her shoulder and keeping my own alignment in the lesson. We were even able to ask her for a little canter in each direction. I am proud to say she did very well. She only had one little buck that we rode through and did not allow it to elevate. It was so nice to see that all of our collective hard work is paying off! Since then, it has been extremely hot here. As much as I hate the heat, Gia hates it even more. We are northern girls! (Gia is a Canadian WB despite being...

June 22-26, 2026:  Many years ago, when I was a young child, my grandfather corrected me when I (in my very grown voice) informed him “I was an equestrian” because I had started taking lessons. He quietly and kindly, which was his way, informed me that I was a horse rider, not an equestrian. Before I could call myself an equestrian I had to do the following things: be bit by a horse, be kicked by a horse, be stepped on by a horse and fall off of a horse. Rest assured, by these standards, I became an equestrian MANY years ago. However, that has always resonated with me. Not that any of those things are pleasant or desirable, but they are part of the game. If you work with horses, these things will happen. Often times, they are preventable and, at least in part, errors made by people. However, to err is human and I have certainly made my fair share of mistakes. I could qualify by my grandfather’s standards as an equestrian solely by my work with Gia. I add all of this to be 100 perce...

 Gia’s Blog Jun15-19: Gia enjoys being groomed by a new groom, Nyx! This week there was a lot more of the same work for Gia. She continues to work well with the grooms and is becoming more and more accepting of multiple people handling/grooming. This is great news as we are in the midst of summer and bug season! As for the riding, I (Danielle) continue to work with Gia on increasing her trot minutes each day. We also work through her tension at the beginning of each trot set. Luckily, she is generally pretty quick to settle down into a routine and get to work. At the trot, I have been encouraging Gia to do more figures, shapes, and adding bend to her work. Friday proved to be a bit more exciting than I had planned, however. When I went to hop on Gia, her saddle started to slip as I put my foot in the stirrup. I had, of course, just tightened her girth prior to mounting, but I guess I could’ve gone a hole tighter! As I felt the saddle slip, I attempted to step down onto the mounting...

As is always the case, life is so busy. I will try and catch up here by giving you all some weekly synopses with the highlights. May 25-29, 2026 - What a week this one proved to be! I think I need to just start putting things into the universe via this blog. In the last entry, I mentioned how I hoped that Gia and I could get off to a better start to our work each day. Ironically, or maybe not so much, I personally had a breakthrough in a ride on another horse early in the week. The other horse *name redacted to protect the mostly innocent* was having a bit of a dramatic day. As I was riding through their feelings, I felt noticeably confident and realized I could ride through the silliness and I was able to breathe and work through the ride. It felt like a huge mental breakthrough. Personally, my riding journey has had a lot of (literal and figurative) ups and downs. When I was younger, I felt invincible and had no fear…even through major injuries. As I have gotten older, I’ve struggled...