Gia - session 164 - More ring work, and a few field adventures!

I warmed Gia up with some walk and trot work, including corners, lots of circles (she was a bit distracted today by someone sitting outside the arena and by another horse working in the arena), haunches-in, shoulder-in and diagonal lines.

Then we worked on cantering.  She did buck a tiny bit with the very first canter in the very first direction, but that was it.  She was a bit tense, anticipating the canter, and did pick up a couple of wrong leads.  I had to work on getting her trot organized and straight and relaxed, and then I was able to get a nice canter in each direction.

After our ring work, we went out into the field.  Since she has been pretty comfortable just walking, I decided to try a few new adventures.

Opening and closing the gate went very easy today.

Then we started with walking over a small jump that could resemble a log.  She could have cared less.

After that, I had her walk through a small ravine.  She only hesitated to figure out where was the best place to put her feet - good trail horse style!

Finally, we went into a separate field to try the water.  Going through the gate to get into that field was the hardest part.  There is a large cactus and brush pile on the other side of the fence but right near the gate to get into the other field.  It's reasonably scary, so Gia took a few minutes to check it out before I urged her through the gate.  She could have cared less when we came back through it at the end.

As you will see in the video, as we are walking down the path to the pond, we are joined by another horse, Patti.  I tried to get Patti to go away, but she was adamant about coming down for a drink, so she managed to slip past.  The worry whenever horses get close like that, if you are riding, is that they will fuss or fight, or kick or bite each other . . . and then you get dumped.  Luckily, these girls were very cool headed.  And it might have actually helped me out anyway.  Whenever you are trying something new with a horse like this, it's often helpful to have another horse lead the way.  It helps the young horse see that it's not so bad, and they feel more confident and comfortable following a friend.  That other horse is usually being ridden by another person, but this worked out anyway.

With very little encouragement on my part, Gia went down the path and right into the pond.  I let her play around a little bit, but once I saw Patti go down in the water, I decided to pull Gia out before she got the idea to do the same.  Monkey see, monkey do!  She clambered back up the path and walked back to the barn, quite proud of herself for the day!