Gia - session 31 - Ashleigh gets Gia ready!

Ashleigh was a working student with me last summer.  She did a lot of work with Gia last year - lunging, natural horsemanship, long lining, and she even assisted when we took Gia to her first show last summer.  She had to move to Wilmington in the fall, but had asked me if she could help out when it came time to back Gia.  We had plans to back Gia last Thursday, so Ashleigh came back up here to get her warmed up and ready for the big moment.  Here is what she had to say about it:

"Today was going to be Gia's first ride!  I haven't worked with Gia in a while, so I paid extra attention to how well behaved she was.  She stood quietly for grooming, but was slightly fussy about girthing. I made sure to correct her when her feet moved.  We then went to the round pen and did join up, which went pretty quickly.  Next we worked on lunging, reviewing the voice cues and making sure she was listening.  Once I was confident I had her focus, we added the boat bumpers at the girth. Throughout the whole process she challenged me once or twice and then did as asked. Our secondary goal was to work out most of her energy so that she would be relaxed and tired when it came time to ride.  Finally we practiced with the long lines, and I made sure she was listening to the reins.  Unfortunately, even though Gia was awesome we did not get to ride.  Looking forward to next week!"

We had a farm emergency come up right about the same time we were going to get on Gia, so things had to be put on hold.  Stay tuned for the next couple of blogs though!

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