All The Kings' Horses

 Amazingly, Gia was really good today!  I hadn't ridden her since last Tuesday, due to the holidays, and it was super windy today.  So, I thought things would be a little sketchy, but she was fantastic, even a little lazy!   There was a little bit of drama as we worked today, but nothing too bad.  When I first got on and started walking her around, stretching down, she noticed the new "toy" I had bought recently for her, which came in a few days ago.  It's a set of cavaletti blocks that I can use to build different kinds of jumps.  It's the same thing that Charlie uses as filler for some of his jumps that she tends to be terrified of, causing several stops.  I bought her a set of three different colors to practice over.  (One set came in this weekend, but the others are still backordered.)  When she first saw the white blocks, she slammed on the brakes.  I had her approach them, asking her to move forward off my leg, and always releasing as soon as she moved forwa

 Gia was quite tense today.  I'm not really sure why, but it is what it is.  She started before I even walked her into the ring at CDP.  She saw "something" (who knows what), as we were walking into the arena, and slammed on the brakes.  It took her a few hesitant steps to get all the way in.  Each time she took a step forward, I relaxed, patted her and tried again.  When we finally got in the ring, I gave her a treat.   In the arena, she was very looky at pretty much everything.  I tried not to make a big deal about any of it (definitely a challenge for me).  Each time she spooked, I put her on a circle, asking her to bend away from the direction of the "scary thing" by keeping my outside hand at the withers and using a leading inside hand, as well as a pushing inside leg, to make her body move towards the spooky item.  As soon as she relaxed, I would relax and we would carry on as if nothing had happened.  It took a while, but she finally started to relax a bi

 It was quite windy out today, so Gia was a bit tense.  It took a bit longer than usual to get her to stretch down, and I really only got one or two good walk/trot transitions.  We did start with stretching at the walk.  We walked all around the ring, including over some ground poles that were scattered about.  I was really trying to focus on being straight and symmetrical, but she was so tense from the wind, that it didn't seem to make a difference in the beginning.   Once things were a little better, we worked on the same stuff at the trot.  I had several sets of trot poles set up around the ring.  When she was correct over a single pole - had a steady tempo, was straight and was stretching a little - then we went over two poles.  When those were good, we worked over three poles.  Each time we got a good trip over the poles, I stopped and offered her a treat.  She really needs to build more confidence over obstacles, so I will be adding the treats more often in her work as a rewa

Well, today started out good.  Suzin came over to offer quite a bit of insight into gymnastic exercises that I could do with Gia.  I warmed her up with some stretching down at the walk and trot.  When she was a bit looser, I walked and trotted over several single poles around the arena.  Then Suzin had us come down centerline over three trot poles while she adjusted them to fit Gia's stride.  I had done this exercise with her a while ago, but her stride has definitely increased since then!  Sometimes Gia came through the poles too quick, sometimes too slow, sometimes she hesitated, sometimes she stumbled.   Eventually, she was coming through them more confidently, so that's when Suzin added a crossrail.  I had to work on sitting down in the saddle at the correct moment and Gia had to work on going forward to the jump.  If I felt her hesitate or back off or just come in too slow, I would send her forward with a squeeze of my leg.  If she didn't respond, then I popped her wit

 I'm a little behind in my blog posts, so we are doing a two-fer today! On Tuesday, I rode Gia at CDP with Hayley in a jump lesson.  Things went much better than last time.  I'm honestly struggling to remember specifics, other than we did several individual jumps and then put them together in a course.  Gia didn't stop at anything, and she had some lovely moments at the canter as well.  Hayley took a couple of videos, so hopefully, I will have those to add to my post soon!  Throughout the ride, Gia had been spooking slightly at the gazebo and at a jump filler that was laying off on the side.  After her lesson, I took her to each of those and had her "hang out" for a while so she could relax about it.  It didn't take too long with the jump filler, but it did take a while at the gazebo.  I think she may have been more concerned about the person sitting in the car near the gazebo, but it was a little hard to tell. On Wednesday we had a dressage lesson with Suzin.

 Gia felt very tight and against my hand for most of our ride today.  I really struggled to get her to reach down and stay soft.  I did a lot of work on my own position - equal weight in both feet, equal weight in both seatbones, keeping my body aligned with her and her body aligned with our path, keeping my hands soft and equal weight in each.  I definitely felt some good moments, but they were fleeting, and it was hard to keep them consistent.  We mainly stuck with traveling around the ring, just off the rail, so that we could really focus on straightness.  I asked for a few different figures/movements to try to help her find the straightness - leg yield, shoulder-in, small circles, etc.  We did a few circles and changes of bend when things were a little better.  We also did a few walk/trot transitions when things were a little better.  By the end of the ride, I did feel like she was a little softer, but it still didn't feel as consistent as it had.  Sometimes, with horses, that&

 I warmed Gia up with flexing and stretching at the walk and trot.  We also did a few walk/trot transitions, and several changes of bend.  She was nicely responsive to all that! I had several jumps set up from a lesson the other night, so I pretty much left them all as they were,  but made sure that they all had ground poles to help her out.  Then I just proceeded to jump whatever looked good.  We started with a smallish X, but then moved on quickly to a vertical. I kept everything fairly low and plain, and she jumped everything nicely in stride and with lots of confidence.  She even tackled a 4-5 stride line and a 1 stride combination like they were nothing.  If anything, she took a little moment to think about the 1 stride, but I never got the idea that she was going to stop, just that she needed to assess how to work through it.  Whenever she cantered afterwards, I worked on her straightness and balance at the canter.  She was fairly equal in both directions.  When jumping, I had to

 Gia and I had an intense dressage lesson with Suzin today.  We started out stretching down at the walk.  That was pretty good almost immediately, so we did a few walk/trot transitions until she wasn't coming up against my hand.  Then we worked on stretching down into the trot.  When that was solid on a circle, we started moving around the ring in a variety of figures - serpentines, half circle reverses, inverted reverses.  Whatever she needed in order to help her find straightness in her body.  I was constantly evaluating which rein was lighter and which was heavier.  I had to remember to keep the weight in my reins equal, and then correct Gia's straightness based on that.  She's quiet sensitive, so sometimes it was the right that was heavier, but she would quickly respond to my corrections, and then it would be the left that was heavier.  She will need to work on finding the middle ground, but it's a much better problem to have than if the horse doesn't respond at

Gia and I had a lesson with Hayley today since Charlie was out of town.  She seemed a bit more tense than the last few times, but she's had almost a week off since I was away at a show.  We did a lot of stretching down at the walk and trot.  Hayley really stressed to me to try not to help her too much with my hands (probably the control freak in me, but it's HARD to let go!).  When we started over the jumps, Gia was a bit inconsistent, which is no big deal since she's young.  But I had to work on staying out of her way and letting her make the mistakes so that she could learn from them.  Sometimes Gia wanted to rush through the jump, but she also stopped hard at a couple of jumps.  One in particular took her quite a while to get over, and once we did, it was a bit messy.  We went back over it a few more times until it was much smoother.  By the end, we were doing a mini course, and her best jump of the day was over that difficult one!  She felt straight and centered and ver

 Gia started out very stretchy and round today! When I asked for a trot transition, she stayed nicely in my hands and did not come up against.  Suzin seemed very pleased!  We worked a lot on stretching down, flexing and moving all around the arena.  She was making very nice changes of bend.  Then we started to work on the canter.  It was hard for her to make the transition from trot to canter without throwing her haunches around and coming against my hand.  I had to work to keep her haunches in and let her shoulder go out.  We did a lot of spiral-in, leg-yield out.  I also had to concentrate on keeping equal weight in my seat bones.  That seemed to make the biggest difference.  As usual, the right was slightly harder than the left, but she was able to give good moments in each direction.  What I love most about Gia is that through it all, she was really trying to understand and trying to please!  There were many times that she anticipated what I wanted, although sometimes incorrectly. 

 Gia was a little distracted when I started my warm up at CDP today.  I had to do a lot of stretching and flexing to keep her attention and get her to reach.  Same again when we picked up the trot.  We traveled all around the arena, changing directions, and flexing and stretching.  Charlie said she looked a lot better today though! Once we were warmed up and I had her focus a bit better, we proceeded to play over several of the jumps.  There was only one stop today, and it might have been my fault.  It was at our nemesis, the red jump.  I thought I felt her start to pull me towards it, and I may have shifted my balance a little too much, which may have changed her mind about the jump.  Regardless, we came around to it again, and got over it just fine, although awkwardly.  The third time was much smoother.   Charlie had us work a lot on keeping her shoulder more to the left, since it kept wanting to fall out to the right, especially when we were tracking left.  That is very common, and

 Gia was quite grumpy while being groomed this morning.  My best guess is that I'm pretty sure she is in heat, and just feeling generally sullen about being touched.  She also had a slight cut on her left hind leg.  It wasn't serious, but we lunged her just to make sure she was sound.  She looked sound on the lunge, but in the past, sometimes with small cuts like this, she has not felt sound under saddle.  With all that in mind, I decided that I would probably just walk around on her for a little bit and work on stretching down, and maybe try the trot to see how she felt. She felt fairly "normal" when I started our ride this morning.  I focused on our homework - stretching down and staying flexed.  It wasn't her best work, but it wasn't bad either.  When I asked her for the trot, I expected her to suck back or feel slightly off, but she actually felt really good.  So, we continued to work on our homework at the trot - lots of transitions between the walk and t