Gia - session 36 - Katie gets to ride!

Katie got to work with and ride Gia on Wednesday.  Here is what she had to say:

"Yesterday, it was my turn to hop on Gia. I started out by bringing her into the crossties and tacking her up. As usual, she was really good and quiet for this. Then I warmed her up in the round pen by free lunging her at the walk, trot, and canter and also did some join up work with her. Then I added the boat bumpers by her shoulder and did some more lunging with her. After she was warmed up, Heather joined us in the round pen with some grain. We led her up next to the stool, and I got on while she was eating the grain. So then we worked on turning and walking away from the grain and then coming back to it. We did that a few times each way and added halting when we turned away. Then we went out on the rail to work on the trot. We started off with about five steps of trot, and we changed directions and added an extra trot step with each change of direction before getting grain. She was really good for this at first, but when we got to about ten steps of trot, she started stopping and trying to come back in to eat the grain. At one point I had to hop off of her because she was giving Heather a bit of an attitude.  So, Heather lunged her for a while, and then I got back on her again, this time without the grain. She stood still when I was getting on, and then she tried to move a little bit. So, we had her stand still for three seconds before allowing her to have some more grain. After that, we went back out onto the rail to work on her trot some more. The goal was to get a whole lap of trotting, but we were not able to make that happen yesterday, and had to settle for ten steps of trot. We did not let her have any grain when I hopped off of her, but she stood still and did not mind at all. Despite not everything going according to plan, I still had a lot of fun with Gia!"

        - Katie


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