Gia - session 193 - Sharon Oaks hunter show!

 I took Gia along to the Sharon Oaks hunter show yesterday.  She was quite obnoxious after I loaded her on the trailer - lots of piaffing.  She did eventually settle down though.

When it was her turn at the show, she stood tied to the trailer, very quietly munching her hay, while the kids helped to get her brushed and tacked.  I lunged her in the warm up area, where she was pretty relaxed, and even a little lazy.  Then I rode her in the warm up arena.  She was a little tense, but relaxed fairly quickly into some nice walk, trot, canter work.  We did a little bit of moving off my leg in each direction, just like we do at home.  

I wasn't able to get her into the show ring in time for the schooling break, so I decided to just enter her in one of the classes.  It was a walk, trot, canter class, and there were about 10 other horses in the ring.  When we first walked in, they were announcing the placings from the previous class, and everyone was clapping and cheering.  That made her really nervous, and she never quite settled down from that.  It wasn't terrible (she didn't buck me off or anything), but it wasn't as relaxed as I had hoped for.  We did manage to walk, trot and canter, although her canter to the right was touch and go.  At the end, she did actually stand fairly quiet while they called out the placings for the other horses.  If I had more time, I would probably have put her in another class to help her work through it, but I had to quit there to get ready for our next rider. 

She was definitely tired after all the excitement, and stood very quietly on the trailer the rest of the day!

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