Gia - session 78 - More cantering in the arena!

No lunging for Gia before riding today.  She was quite fidgety at the mounting block though, showing off her potential for piaffe, as she was impatient to get started.  It took a little longer than usual to hop on because of this, but she did eventually stand still.  We started out walking in figure 8's and over poles.  She was, again, impatient to get going at the trot, so we stayed at the walk a bit longer, until she had finally relaxed and started stretching into it.  The trot work went really well.  She's not used to cantering in the arena yet, so she wasn't impatient to get anywhere☺.  We trotted in figure 8's and over poles as well.  At both gaits I also worked on keeping her straight, and getting her to move off my leg in order to achieve straightness.  By the end, the trot work was very solid in tempo and straightness. 

It was a bit sloppy in the round pen today after all the rain we got, so I decided not to trek up to the round pen to canter.  Instead, I put Gia on a large circle, and, when the trot felt good, I asked for the canter.  She really struggled with the cue today.  She kept wanting to speed up rather than transition into the canter.  Each time she did, I brought her back to a regular, working trot and tried again.  It took several tries, and I had to add a tap from the whip to get my point across, but she finally got it.  She struggled a little bit less in the opposite direction.  Once we had gotten the canter once in each direction, I let her end on that. 

We cooled down with a little bit of turn on the forehand (TOF) work.  I still had to use a tap of the whip to get her started, but only the first couple of times.  Once I was able to get TOF without whip in each direction, we were done for the day.  With no extra grooming to work on today, Gia's session ended a lot earlier than usual!