Gia - session 286 - more lateral work

 Gia and I worked on some of our dressage stuff today.  We did a little bit of stretching at the walk, then we moved into the trot.  It took a few tries to get a nice walk/trot transition.  Each time she inverted when attempting to go into the trot, I brought her back to walk, did a little flexion and leg yield, and tried again.

Then we worked a bit on stretching, leg yielding, flexing, circles and changes of direction at the trot.  She was a little distracted by the other horses today, so it took a little longer to get her supple and focused.  Once she was focused, we did a couple of shoulders-in at the walk and trot down the rail.  Those definitely seemed easier for her today.

I also asked her for quite a lot of haunches-in at the trot, in preparation for the canter.  She did really well with it to the left.  To the right, she was a bit tense, and kept trying to canter before I actually asked her to.  She did feel really nice and collected, but since I didn't ask for it, it didn't count.  I did eventually get nice canter transitions in each direction, once I asked for them.

Finally, we worked on turn-on-the-haunches at the walk, as well as walk/halt transitions.  She was very willing, and even gave me some fairly correct steps in both movements today.

Overall, we had a very nice and productive ride!

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