All The Kings' Horses

 Tuesday 9/15/26 - I was finally able to get on Gia today after a week and a half of her being home and still not being able to ride due to high fevers and increased respiratory rates.  Today was about 10 degrees cooler out, so that probably helped a lot as well!  I kept it very light on her, and we just stayed at the walk.  I also kept a close eye on her respiratory rate the entire time.  I mainly worked on  my own position flaws (of which there are many 🫤).  Today it was about keeping more weight in my big toes, rather than allowing my ankles to roll to the outside and letting the weight go to my pinkie toes.  And I had to keep the weight symmetrical in both stirrups, which meant I had to focus on putting more weight in my right stirrup, since that leg always wants to draw up.  I also worked on pushing my leg down and backwards, drawing my thigh away from the thigh block of my saddle - I thought about pedaling a bike backwards.  And f...

8/10/26 (Danielle) - I worked with Gia under saddle. We continued to work relaxing and moving forward at both the walk and the trot. Gia started out a bit tense, but I worked with her by talking to her and encouraging her to settle into her gaits and move forward. I think both of us are tired of the never-ending heat and humidity at this point! 8/11/26 (Heather) - I started out with Gia on the ground, working on walk/halt transitions.  I wanted to make sure that she would go forward when I asked her to, without any resistance (aka, bucking).  I am still rehabbing my leg, and I'm just not really up for that right now. 😉  We ended up doing quite a bit of transition work before she felt obedient enough to head to the block.  The biggest issue was actually bringing her back to the halt obediently.  Once at the block, she felt very anxious, and did not really want to stop there, or stand there, or be there in general.  I decided to work on encouraging relaxatio...

 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...