Gia - sessions 58 and 59 - more of the same
I have had a super busy weekend, so no time to write about Gia's adventures on Friday. So, I'm combining her last two session in one post.
On Friday, things went pretty much the same as they did on Wednesday. I lunged her until she was obedient to the cues and not freaking out about anything. She stayed pretty calm for that. Under saddle, we did much the same stuff that we had been doing. I don't remember anything glaringly good or bad, so just an average ride. Afterwards, Danielle and I worked together on the clipping, mane pulling and bathing. She behaved roughly the same, perhaps a tad better, for all three.
For today's session, I also started out lunging. She was much more obedient to the down transitions right away. Tracking right, she was practically perfect in everything I asked her to do. Tracking left, she was a little less obedient to the down transition (more distracted by something else), and a little grumpy when I got after her for not responding to the up transition. Once she was going better, I hopped on.
Today's ride was our best one yet! She started out sucking back in the walk, not really wanting to go forward. When I would ask for more forward with leg and whip, she would act like she was going to refuse and plant her feet. Since I have really worked on getting her to yield her neck and head to me when she does this, it did not take much effort to get her to pay attention and then move her feet. I did not have to resort to lots of small circles, but rather, just a few larger ones or partial ones. Pretty soon she was moving much more forward at the walk, so we moved on to trot. At the trot she was very forward (but not in a bad way). Her biggest issue at the trot today was being able to turn her body, not just her head. So, using my leg and the whip on her shoulder, I worked on getting her to move away from my leg each time she turned. For example, if we turned to the right, her shoulder would want to go to the left. I would use my left leg and the whip on her left shoulder to help push her body to the right. After a few times in each direction she was really getting the hang of it! It was definitely harder whenever we turned right though, which is pretty common for a lot of horses.
Once we got to a point where she felt a little better in each direction, I hopped off, untacked her and held her while Zion bathed her. She was a little nervous, but much less so than Friday!
On Friday, things went pretty much the same as they did on Wednesday. I lunged her until she was obedient to the cues and not freaking out about anything. She stayed pretty calm for that. Under saddle, we did much the same stuff that we had been doing. I don't remember anything glaringly good or bad, so just an average ride. Afterwards, Danielle and I worked together on the clipping, mane pulling and bathing. She behaved roughly the same, perhaps a tad better, for all three.
For today's session, I also started out lunging. She was much more obedient to the down transitions right away. Tracking right, she was practically perfect in everything I asked her to do. Tracking left, she was a little less obedient to the down transition (more distracted by something else), and a little grumpy when I got after her for not responding to the up transition. Once she was going better, I hopped on.
Today's ride was our best one yet! She started out sucking back in the walk, not really wanting to go forward. When I would ask for more forward with leg and whip, she would act like she was going to refuse and plant her feet. Since I have really worked on getting her to yield her neck and head to me when she does this, it did not take much effort to get her to pay attention and then move her feet. I did not have to resort to lots of small circles, but rather, just a few larger ones or partial ones. Pretty soon she was moving much more forward at the walk, so we moved on to trot. At the trot she was very forward (but not in a bad way). Her biggest issue at the trot today was being able to turn her body, not just her head. So, using my leg and the whip on her shoulder, I worked on getting her to move away from my leg each time she turned. For example, if we turned to the right, her shoulder would want to go to the left. I would use my left leg and the whip on her left shoulder to help push her body to the right. After a few times in each direction she was really getting the hang of it! It was definitely harder whenever we turned right though, which is pretty common for a lot of horses.
Once we got to a point where she felt a little better in each direction, I hopped off, untacked her and held her while Zion bathed her. She was a little nervous, but much less so than Friday!
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