All The Kings' Horses

Since Gia did so well with the boat bumpers last time, I decided she was ready to move on to a refresher on long lining.  Katie had never long lined before, so I had her practice on Schuyler a little bit earlier on Wednesday.  When it was Gia's turn, I started her out, just to make sure she would remember, and she did great!  We kept it very simple - I just asked her to walk, whoa and turn.  For the walk, I just used my voice, and she needed a little extra encouragement from the whip since there was some grass growing in the round pen.  For the whoa, I used my voice and a light rein aid so that she would remember what that meant.  For turning, I used a light, jiggling turning aid.  She was pretty good about remembering the cues, and she was not upset about anything.  She did get her tongue over the bit a few times, but she quickly put it back in place.  Following is Katie's version of the day, and then a small video of Katie long lining. From Katie: " Today, we changed

From Katie: Gia did a lot better yesterday than she has been doing. I brought her in and had the clippers on in a feed pan on the ground right in front of her. She checked them out once, and then ignored them for the rest of the time that she was in the cross ties. She stood still for grooming and tacking, and the we headed up to the round pen. I free lunged her with the boat bumpers at her girth, and as soon as I sent her out, she started pinning her ears and trying to rear to intimidate me. I yelled at her and ran at her until she moved away. Then, she did great at the trot and canter and was overall really good. When I put the lunge line on her and moved the bumpers back to her flank, she tried to get out of working again. Once again, I yelled at her and ran at her until she moved away. Then she did great, she did not even think about bucking! She just trotted and cantered with her head down politely. So, yesterday definitely went better after just those two problem spots!

So, I had to take a bit of a hiatus with Gia recently.  A few weeks ago, I dislocated my right ring finger (yes, I'm right handed :/).  I have been spending the last few weeks figuring out how to function, work, ride, etc.  I've also been doing a little pouting, and it was quite hot, so I wasn't really in the mood to mess with Gia.  I've basically just been trying to get used to my new, temporary, "normal", and only doing the things that were absolutely necessary.  And Gia was not one of those things.  However, the cooler weather helped to improve my mood, and I am starting to get over my pity party.  And I was starting to miss working with Gia, and getting a little envious watching someone else do it :).  So, I started back with her on Friday. She has been doing quite well with someone else grooming her, so I turned that task over to my assistant for the day - Danielle.  She was pretty quiet for Danielle.  We did have the clippers turned on in the crossties

From Katie: Yesterday was a bit of a rough day with Gia. Like before, I turned on the clippers and put them in the cross ties across from where I was going to put Gia. Only this time they were in front of her. When I brought her in, she was very interested in the noise, and she wanted to check them out. She walked over to where they were and touched the pan they were in. After that, when I was grooming and tacking her, she didn’t have a problem with them at all.  At one point, I left her standing in the cross ties for about 10 minutes to help with another horse, and while she did fidget some while I was gone, she stood quietly for the most part. Then I took her up to the round pen and free lunged her with the boat bumpers at her girth. As usual, she was really good for this, so I moved the bumpers to her flank and put the lunge line on her. That’s when a few problems came up, I was having a hard time getting her to move away from me when she was on the line. I wasn’t really sur

From Katie on this past Wednesday: Gia did really good in some areas but not so great in others. When I brought her in, there was a lot of activity going on, so we stopped a few times to check out the “scary” stuff before we got to the cross ties. We added some clippers, turned on, across from her in the cross ties, so she could get used to the noise. This didn’t bother her at all, and she was still perfectly quiet while I was grooming and tacking her. We then went up to the round pen, and did the usual: free lunging with the boat bumpers at her girth, and then I put her on the lunge line and moved the bumpers to her flank. She was quiet for everything with no bucking at all, until I asked her to canter with the bumpers at her flank. She bucked several times while cantering, and each time I pulled on the lunge line until she stopped. It took a while to get her to stop bucking every time she cantered, but eventually she did canter quietly. So, we managed to end on a good note desp