Gia - session 235 - lunging and jumping

 I finally remembered to lunge Gia this morning!  She started off fairly quiet, but then something set her off (not sure what), and she exploded.  We worked through the routine we had done at Charlie's, and she eventually settled down.  

Then, when she was more receptive, as Danielle was setting up jumps, I decided to play over a few of them with her on the lunge line.  She was a little hesitant at first, but once she understood the task, she was very willing.  She also got a little treat after each jump, so that incentive helped!

As soon as I hopped on her I could feel a huge difference.  She was much more relaxed and more able to focus on what I was asking her to do.  We did a little stretching, and then went over the trot poles.  Those were easy and correct the first time through, so I added the X right away.  That also went easy the first time. In fact, all the jumps went easy the first time, so each addition went up pretty quickly until we were going through the trot poles to an X oxer to another oxer.  She was only tense when the second oxer was added, and it was only for one trip through.  For everything else, she was super relaxed.  

To finish up, I let her go over a couple of the single jumps that we had practiced over on the lunge line.  At one point, we were on a circle, planning to go around a jump, but I felt her pull me towards it.  I didn't let her jump that one (it would have been a very awkward angle), but I love that she wanted to!  She did, however, jump a small oxer set on the new white blocks, as well as two barrels set on their side.  She got a little quick over the barrels to the right, but I think it was more because she was unbalanced.  Otherwise, she was awesome over all the jumps today!