All The Kings' Horses

Today, we repeated all the same things we did on Monday.  Gia was a little lazy on the lunge, so I had to get after her at first, but only really in the beginning.  She was also a bit grumpy about picking up the canter today.  Two steps forward, one step back ... Under saddle, she was great with her consistent circles at the walk and trot. Her centerlines at the walk and trot were ok.  Her body really wanted to fall to the right.  I had to focus on keeping my elbows in, keeping equal weight in both stirrups, and reminding her to move off my right leg.  We were able to get three decent centerlines at both gaits by the end. Today's new item was halting on centerline.  This is definitely something that she needs lots of work on, and something that will probably take her a while to get. I took a video of our halts from start to stop (he he he).  You can see that it takes a while for her to respond to the cue in the beginning.  When I ask for the halt, I apply a "holding&qu

I've decided that Gia's extra day of training, now that she is four years old and I can work with her four days a week instead of three, will typically be on Tuesdays.  I have a lighter schedule on Tuesdays, so I can take her off property to work on paying attention and working under different distractions.  This will be very helpful for when we are ready to go to competitions. Today I took her to my coach's farm, CDP Stables, in Vass, NC.  She has worked off the property before, and she has been to his farm before, so this really wasn't anything new, but she needs to get more familiar with it. She hesitated a bit, and then "piaffed" a little when I put her on the trailer.  Otherwise, she rode fairly smoothly there, getting off with no problems, and re-loading with no problems. Once there, I kept her "tied" to the trailer.  There are way too many things going on for me to actually tie her to the trailer just yet, so rather, I looped her long le

Today is Gia's 4th birthday! It's amazing to look back at pictures and see how far she has come! I am always excited whenever a foal is born (or any baby animal!), however I actually wasn't as excited for Gia as I was for other babies.  I never had any intentions of keeping Gia.  I had purchased her mom, Fiona, to be my primary broodmare, and she was already pregnant, so Gia was a freebie.  I had plans to breed Fiona to a stallion I had used before, and I was definitely planning to keep that baby, but meanwhile, I would bring Gia up and prepare her for a sale.  I even advertised her for sale as soon as I could.  However, as many of you may know, my plans were dashed.  I bred Fiona to the stallion, and she had the most gorgeous, friendly, striking colt I have ever seen.  However, on his 8 month birthday, after having already been through one colic surgery, he colicked again and had to be put down. I couldn't even look at Fiona or Gia for a while.  All my hope

I started Gia today on the lunge line with the Pessoa, working on staying on a consistent circle.  She was a little lazy at times, but overall she was pretty good with that. Under saddle, we started with the same work on consistent circles at the walk and trot.  She was a little fussy at times, but overall pretty good with that too.  I think we even got a deeper stretch at both the walk and trot today! To finish off we added walking down centerline, including focus on the turn onto and off of centerline. The turns onto and off of centerline should be more like a half of a 10 meter circle, rather than a square, 90 degree turn.  That part was pretty easy for her.  The hard part today was about staying straight on centerline and not drifting one way or the other. In the videos I took, (there are two simply because my phone was interrupted, but they are pretty much back to back), you will see how Gia starts off very drunkenly down centerline.  By the last three passes though, she h

I had forgotten to write about Gia's work from yesterday.  It was pretty brief since I was so busy, but I did lunge her in the Pessoa.  She was quite distracted and tense, so I mainly kept her working whenever she was not focused on me, but allowed her to relax whenever she was quiet.  She ended her session much more relaxed than she started. Today, I started with the lunging again in the Pessoa.  I have typically allowed her lunging "circle" to go where ever it needed to in order to keep the pressure on the line the same, and to keep Gia as relaxed as possible.  I decided to increase the difficulty in her lunging today, by insisting that she maintain her circle the same size and in the same place.  I should really give her more credit than I do.  It really wasn't that hard for her at all, and I probably could have done this a long time ago. We stuck with our normal lunging routine otherwise, and she did fairly well.  I think she was on her best behavior for the

I started Gia on the lunge line working in the Pessoa.  She was a bit lazy and grumpy today.  She did a lot of ear-pinning whenever I asked her to move forward, so we worked through it.  Anytime she pinned her ears, I would send her more forward.  She was becoming much better behaved by the end. Under saddle, I worked at the walk and trot, asking her to bend and counter bend.  I took two videos today at the walk - one where I was not asking her stay on specific circles, but rather letting her go kind of where ever she wanted.  In the second video, I am being more insistent that she stay on similar sized circles, in the same spot in the arena, and still asking her to bend, counter bend and stretch. It was definitely harder for her to maintain the more correct geometry, but she is ready for more discipline in that department.  I think it's fine to allow more freedom when a horse is learning what you want, but Gia has a pretty good understanding of bending and counter bending, so

I repeated the work that I did with Gia using the Pessoa again today.  She was a little grumpy when I would send her forward, so every time she had a negative reaction, I would send her more forward.  I can't say that we really made much progress with allaying her grumpiness, but it just may take more time and more repetition over the coming sessions. Under saddle today, I kept it very simple.  I only asked her to stretch down at the walk and trot, using circles, bending and counterbending.  I think she stretched more today than she did the last time I rode her!  She does have a hard time staying on a consistent path, so I focused on that more towards the end.  I will try to keep that in the mind when I ride her the next time! I forgot to mention that I did start clipping Gia again on Monday.  I started with her front feet, and I kept her in the barn to do it (rather than letting her eat grass, like I had been doing when I last clipped her).  She was a bit nervous, but she didn

If you live in my area, then you are aware of the nasty line of storms that rolled through this morning.  Luckily, we did not have any storm damage, but the storm did leave us with a lot of high winds.  So, I stuck with just lunging again today.  However, I opted to lunge Gia using my Pessoa Training System. The "Pessoa" is a system of ropes and pullies that you can attach to a regular training surcingle.  There is a piece that goes around the back end of the horse, and then the ropes and pullies can attach in numerous places, depending on what stage of training your horse is at.  I can't remember if I have worked Gia in the "Pessoa" before, so I took it nice and slow today.  Sometimes, a horse will over-react when they feel the pressure and movement on their hind end.  I took a video of Gia when we first started our session today.  In the video, you can see that she doesn't really react to it at all.  It is very possible that I used it on her way back

I was debating riding Gia today.  It was super windy, and much cooler than yesterday,  but she was pretty relaxed, and I REALLY wanted to ride today! However, sadly, I decided against it, and we just worked a little more intently on her lunging work. (I can't wait for summer!) Rather than asking for multiple transitions today, I allowed her to stay at one gait at a time, and work on stretching.  We did that for the same amount of time we had been, and then I added a bit of extra canter work at the end on each side.  For this work, I did have her do a lot of transitions into the canter. I would wait until she was fairly relaxed and quiet at the trot and not trying to canter on her own.  Then I would ask for the canter as softly as possible.  If she was polite and moved into the canter without her ears coming back, then I praised her.  If she brought her ears back and displayed too much attitude, then I fussed at her.  Eventually, she was able to give me a few good transition

My session with Gia started out with the same intentions on the lunge line.  However, Gia was a bit frisky and ready to go today, so I spent less time on the transitions, and just allowed her to keep the trot, in an effort to get some energy out.  When she anticipated a transition, I had her do the opposite.  Sometimes she would anticipate the down transitions, but most of the time, she was anticipating the up transitions, especially to the canter. On a funny note, she has definitely been paying attention to the timer I use to keep track of her minutes on the lunge line.  She knows that I will be asking her to trot after the first timer goes off, signaling the end of her walk work.  She is super relaxed at the walk, but as soon as she hears the timer, she gets prepped for the trot, and sometimes trots without me asking.  Same again when the timer for her trot work goes off.  She knows that the canter work is next, and she often moves into the canter without me asking at all.  This ca

I started Gia's workout today exactly like we have been doing the past few times - lunging on the line with the neck stretcher, working on stretching down at the walk, trot and canter, and working on her behavior with the up transitions. Everything went super, and she was really relaxed, and it wasn't windy, and it wasn't too cold.  So ... I decided I was finally ready to get back in the saddle after not being on her in almost 2 months!! Since I am still working on getting her back into shape, I decided to keep this first ride very easy - just walking.  All we really worked on was stretching down at the walk, on 15 meter-ish circles, with a little bit of bend, in each direction. I think she did better with this work today than she had done the last time I rode her!  She was absolutely relaxed.  Nothing bothered her at all, and she was almost lazy, which I was fine with ☺.  And when the guy across the street started power washing, she didn't even flinch.  She was a

I was thinking about possibly riding Gia today, but it was quite windy, and she was a bit frisky, so I decided to wait another day.  One more day won't hurt, but riding today might have ☺. So, I worked with Gia on the lung line, with the same workout I used the last time. I videoed her canter work today.  Initially, I was thinking I would show you guys what goes on when she misbehaves at the canter, but when I cantered her in the first direction, she was perfect!  It was actually the nicest canter work she has ever given me! However, when I cantered her the second direction, she did give us a glimpse of her grumpiness when asked to move forward.  I will include the videos when I post my blog. As to why she was so good for the first canter - I think the wind and cool temperatures had her much more willing to go forward today.  I worked her to the right first today, and that tends to be her easier direction.  I think she was grumpier the second direction, because it was to th

Today I worked with Gia on the lunge line with the exact same workout that I have done the last two days.  She was a bit distracted and grumpy at first, especially to the left, but by the end, she was giving me her best canter transitions yet! On a completely different note, I started Gia on a new therapy today.  A couple of months ago, I had noticed that she was a bit grumpy while being groomed and saddled.  Since she had previously been pretty good, I took this as a sign of something physically bothering her.  I decided to have Butch's bodywork specialist take a look at her.  I had been taking her down to CDP Stables, where Butch stays once a week anyway, so Cameron could just take a look at her while we were down there.  He checked her out, and did a baseline comprehensive soundness evaluation.  Basically, he checked her all over, watched her walk and trot and evaluated her body and gaits.  To address the grumpiness that I had noticed, he recommended that I start her on