All The Kings' Horses

 Gia and I had a dressage lesson with Suzin today.  We kept it pretty simple and just worked at the walk and trot, mostly on transitions and keeping Gia together.  She felt a bit tense, like she might have a little tantrum, when I first started with her.  I worked on getting her to stretch down, and just feeding her small amounts of info.  Not too much that she felt the need to explode, but enough that she knew she needed to keep doing something.  When I picked her up to the trot, I sat the trot at first, until she let go of some of the tension and gave me a trot that I could post to.  Then we worked a lot on positioning, to help get her straighter and more obedient to the transitions.  She ended up giving me a lot of nice moments of suspension and throughness! 

 I worked with Gia in the arena today on her flatwork.  She had yesterday off, so I decided to ease back into the work today.  I warmed her up with some stretching and straightness at the walk.  At the trot, we also worked on straightness, as well as some transitions when she didn't quite feel right between my hand and leg.  Once she did feel good, I added some halt transitions, as well as a little rein back.  She was good at the halt, but a bit resistant to the rein back. I had planned to work on her canter on the lunge line in the Pessoa, but she felt pretty balanced at the trot today, and I felt something that I can't quite explain that led me to believe that the canter might not be too bad under saddle.   I started with the canter to the right.  I waited until I had the trot going well, and her nicely between my hand and leg, and balanced.  Then I asked for the canter.  We did a LOT of transitions back and forth between canter and trot.  Anytime she got unbalanced, whether

 I took Gia to the Sedgefield jumper show today to school around.  I started out lunging her in the Pessoa, and that made a HUGE difference with her!  She was MUCH quieter, right from the start.  She even walked fairly nicely out to the lunging area.  She had much less trouble staying on her feet and keeping herself together.  She did get a bit frisky when I asked for the canter, but she settled down eventually.  Every time she bucked or kicked out, I brought her to a quick halt, then moved on.   Under saddle, she was a little anxious at first.  Once the walk felt more relaxed, I asked for the trot.  When I started to post the trot, I noticed she got more anxious and thought about bucking, so I decided to try sitting the trot.  That made a HUGE difference in her as well.  For some reason, sitting the trot did not elicit any naughty behavior from her.  And, once she felt more relaxed, I started posting again and she was fine.   I finished our ride with a long walk around the grounds.  S

 We free jumped Gia again today.  This time, we sent her jumping in the opposite direction, but everything else was the same.  She was VERY excited to jump again!  She had stood at the fence watching the others jumping and waiting for her turn.  I think she was studying, because she definitely seemed more prepared this time around.  Usually, we will hand walk a horse to the chute every time, but Gia was ready to do it all by herself (although a little too fast at times).  We pretty much just had to hurry up and adjust the jumps before she could get around to jump them again on her own.  She was even doing really well about figuring out her mistakes and how to correct them.  She came through one time and had too open of a stride, so she chipped in to the second jump pretty bad.  The second time through, even though she was still fast, she quickly figured out that she had to shorten her stride to make it fit.  It was really impressive to watch!  Oh, and she topped her numbers from yester

 I decided to do some free jumping with Gia today.  It's been a while since I last free jumped her, and it wasn't that great.  She was very uncoordinated with her feet, and was also a little slow.  This time was quite different!  After the first couple of run throughs, just going over poles on the ground to get the idea, she was excited, and it didn't take much to get her going.  She had a hard time figuring out when to take off for the first jump, so I had to put a ground pole down, which helped immensely.  She also had a hard time fitting in two strides between the jumps.  She was getting about 1 1/2 strides!  As the jumps got bigger, she was starting to figure it out, and by the end, she was fitting in a nice two strides between two very big jumps!  She ended up getting up to 3'9" with a 4'8" spread!  

 Gia and I had a lesson with Suzin.  We primarily focused on transitions between walk, trot, halt, and rein back.  Gia was really responsive to all those.  I did have to work a little bit to keep her soft, but she was pretty good.  She was also really good at keeping a consistent shape to her body.  We also got to work a little on collecting and lengthening her stride.  The big challenge is to do it without losing the tempo - either getting too quick or too slow.  We practiced changing the number of strides between two set points in the arena (after first determining the average number of working trot strides between the two points).  The goal was to get more or fewer strides between the points without allowing Gia to speed up or slow down.  She did super at the lengthenings!  Collecting her without slowing down was a lot harder, but we did manage to get a little bit. She did throw in a little tantrum in the middle of our work at one point.  I'm not too sure what that was all about

 I took Gia down to CDP today to meet with Cameron for a chiropractic check up.  He said she was very muscle sore on her right side, so he recommended acupuncture in addition to her regular chiropractic adjustment.  She LOVED it!  She was so relaxed and really enjoyed the session.  She was completely zenned out when I saw her.  Hopefully, I will notice a difference in her ride tomorrow!

 I worked with Gia on the lunge line out in the field again today.  My focus was on obedience to my cues, and she was MUCH better this time!  She was much less inclined to try to trot when she was supposed to be walking, and try to canter when she was supposed to be trotting.  Whenever she did, I brought her back down, and waited until she was more relaxed before asking her to speed up again.   When she was good with that, I put her over a jump.  I was able to get her over several jumps this time.  She did try to take off a few times when she saw she was approaching a jump.  I would just bring her back and try again until she could approach in a more sensible manner.  I like that she is eager to jump, but she still has to be obedient about it!

 I decided to start Gia back over jumps today, but I still wanted to keep things easy on her, so I took her out in the field on the lunge line to play around.  The idea was to let her jump over a little bit of everything just to remind her that the jumps were no big deal.  Instead, the session turned into a big lesson on obedience. Each time I asked her to walk, she would try to trot.  I would correct her back to the halt, and then ask again, repeatedly, until she was able to walk on cue without picking up the trot.  Then I repeated the same request for the trot.  When I would ask for the trot, she wanted to take off and careen around, rather than trot off nicely.  I would bring her back to the halt, ask for the walk, then, when that was good, ask for the trot.  When I finally got a good obedient response to both the walk and trot cues, then I would put her over a jump.   She was very full of herself, and very frustrated that I wouldn't just let her bolt and run and cajole about. 

 Between Gia getting injured, me taking a vacation, and Suzin having a conflict one week, it's been a while since Gia and I have had a lesson with Suzin, but we finally got back on track today! We took it fairly easy with her, since she is still not quite back into full work, and since I've been working on her canter from the ground, rather than in the saddle. We mainly just worked on her frame at the walk and trot, as well as transitions and straightness.  Gia was actually quite good!  She was much steadier than the last time Suzin had seen her go.  I focused on making sure my position was straight.  Suzin had me work on loosening up my thighs and seat, as well as keeping my reins short and hands close to each other and Gia's crest.  Then it was just a matter of little tweaks here and there to keep Gia together.  We did a lot of trot, as well as some walk/trot, trot/halt, rein back, and halt to trot transitions.  She had a lot of really nice moments!

 I opted to do more lunging with Gia today in the Pessoa.  She was MUCH more obedient to my cues, even the canter.  She was also MUCH less grumpy.  I think the Pessoa really helps her balance, and push off with her hind end better, so she feels less frustrated with the work.

We got home pretty late from the show last night, and I was too tired to write Gia's blog then, so this blog will be a three-fer, including both days at the show, as well as her workout today. On Saturday at the show, I worked with Gia in the morning.  After brushing and tacking her up, I took her a fair distance away from the trailer to lunge her.  She was quite upset about being so far away from everyone, so there was a lot of frantic hollering, losing her attention in the direction of the trailer, bucking, and being a little crazy on the lunge in general.  I spent a lot of time, doing a lot of transitions, including canter, until she was a bit tired, and a lot more submissive.  I didn't want to take her back to the trailer to use a stool to hop on her, so I had someone give me a leg up.  With her height, it was just as difficult as you might imagine!  Under saddle, I walked her up to the warm up area.  She was VERY nervous about most things on our walk up, and there were a f

 I pretty much did the same thing with Gia today that I did on Wednesday.  She was a tiny bit tense when I first picked up the trot, but as I worked on getting her to bend and soften, the tension went away.  My round pen was occupied today, so I had to lunge her on a lunge line to work on the canter.  For whatever reason, she was MUCH less tense about the canter today, and I got a lot of nice transitions!

 I started Gia with some stretching and straightening at the walk.  I moved on to the trot and worked on the same things.  She was fairly responsive to the trot cues, although she did feel a little tense and quick at times.  She was also fairly responsive to cues to straighten and balance, not quite as supple as last time, but not bad. When it was time to canter, I decided to see how things looked free lunging in the round pen.  If I was having the same problem there, then it would be easier to work with.  If not, then at least I know it's more of an under saddle thing.  I definitely had similar issues in the round pen as I had under saddle last week.  When I asked for the canter, she got very quick and tense and launched into the canter.  I immediately brought her back to the trot, settled her down and then asked for the canter again.  Every time she rushed into the canter, I would bring her back to the trot.  She eventually started to pick up the canter in a more relaxed, and les

 I warmed Gia up with similar work as yesterday at the walk and trot.  We did a little bit of turn-on-the-forehand, and some leg yield. She was a bit more supple today.  She was also straighter in her bending work and changes of direction. As soon as I picked up the trot and sat it, in preparation for the canter, she got very tense and started swishing her tail and moving her hind end.  She was definitely anticipating!  I worked a little longer at the trot, until she had settled down a bit, then asked for the canter.  As expected, it was quite explosive!  We definitely had some airs above the ground!  I worked on the transition in each direction until she was a bit more obedient and less reactive.  It wasn't great, but it was better.

 I did more of the same today with Gia.  I increased each of her trot sets by one minute.  She had no trouble keeping up with the work load.  We worked on transitions whenever she was getting too low in the poll or too quick.  We also worked a lot on turn-on-the-forehand at the walk and trot.  She has definitely lost some of her suppleness, but hopefully, that will return quickly.

 I opted not to lunge Gia today, and instead just did some walk/trot work under saddle.  We started with a 10 minute walk to warm up.  Then I did 4 trot sets at 2 minutes, then 3 minutes, then 4 minutes, then 5 minutes, with a 2 minute walk break in between each.  She seemed to handle it all fairly well.  I mainly focused on keeping her straight, but bending through turns on circles and changes of direction.  We also did a few transitions between gaits, as well as half halts.  She wasn't grumpy at all, and it almost felt like we picked up where we left off three weeks ago!