Gia - session 163 - Finally cantering again!

I decided to skip the lunging again today since it was so hot, and Gia seemed very relaxed.  We even had a little snuggle before I hopped on.  She is sooo affectionate!

We warmed up with work at the walk and trot on circles, diagonal lines and centerlines.  I also threw in a little shoulder-in and haunches-in, as needed, to get her straighter. She mostly needed shoulder-in tracking right, and haunches-in tracking left.

Then I decided we would canter.

I know I said I wanted to get three good canter sessions on the lunge line before I tried it under saddle again, but it's just been so hot.  I will admit that I really waffled about whether or not to canter, since our last canter together had so many fireworks.  I was a tiny bit nervous, but figured that it was now or never, and I had managed to sit her last bucking session, so how bad could this one be ...

It really wasn't bad at all!  She did offer to buck a couple of times, once, at the beginning of each canter in both directions.  However, compared to the way she launched herself last time, this was nothing!  She did take a couple of wrong leads, but I think this was due to her anxiety about the canter as well.  She was a bit quick at the trot whenever I had to bring her back to try to get a better canter depart or to correct the lead.  However, we managed to get one good canter in each direction that lasted for quite a while, and it didn't take very many efforts to get it!

I let her end on that, and then I held her while Danielle hosed her off.  She was a little bit quieter for that.  Then we worked on spraying off her face while I worked on getting her to keep her head down.  She was a bit resistant, but we managed to get a good moment on each side.

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