Gia - session 513 - Horse show - War Horse GAG CT

 I warmed Gia up for the show on Sunday, and it went fairly well.  I started with a bit of lunging.  She was much more calm Sunday than she had been on Saturday.  Then I hopped on and walked up to the warm up arena.  My main focus was on getting her to relax and stretch, and stay focused on me rather than all the other craziness in the dressage warm up.  I was expecting her to be much worse than she actually was.  I did a lot of baby leg yields and bending.  EVERY TIME she did ANYTHING I liked, I made sure to soften and stretch my hands forward and verbally tell her "good girl!"  I could feel her release tension every time she received the rewards.  We did a little bit of free walk, then medium walk and working trot.  We did a lot of transitions, and basically just tried to be real chill.  When it was finally her turn in the dressage arena, she actually did really well!  She was still a bit nervous, but much more relaxed than the last time at a show.  She even got a couple of 8's in her test for her change of rein at the trot across the diagonal, and her medium walk!  She finished and scored 30.3%, putting her in second place out of 10 entries!  (I don't check my scores until the very end, so I didn't know this until much later in the day).

When it was time for her jumping round, we walked up to the warm up with Ali.  She was about the same amount of nervous in that warm up that she had been in the dressage warm up.  A little bit more when her <noisy> friend Pippa walked by.  Once she had done some walk and trot and bending and leg yields, I let her start jumping.  She was a bit quick and slightly bucky at first, but once she got into it and we jumped a bit more, she started to pay more attention to her work.  After warming up, we had to wait a little bit before it was her turn to compete.  This can sometimes be the hardest part, but she has to learn to stand still and wait her turn.  Anytime she got anxious and "piaffey", I made her walk forward in small circles until she could be quiet again, even if only for a few seconds.  When it was finally her turn, she walked over the black mats into the arena much better this time than on Saturday.  The course was exactly the same, so no big surprises there.  Overall, she rode it better on Sunday than Saturday.  She was generally more relaxed (although she did still spook a little at the black mats), she cantered a bit more, and didn't have any penalties.  So, we ended the competition in second place on her dressage score!  She had still been a bit anxious in the stall all day, but that will get better the more she goes.  This was definitely a good outing for her overall!

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