Gia - session 536 - Dressage and hunter show

 I took Gia to the Tri-Area horse show today.  It's a blend of dressage and hunters, and some western classes.  I entered Gia in Intro test A, as well as a few over fences classes at 2'.  

I started out lunging her, and she did quite well.  A little nervous and quick at first, but settled down a little quicker than last time.  Under saddle, I worked on free walk/medium walk transitions.  She did not feel too tense.  I also worked on walk/trot transitions and trying to get her to stretch at the trot.  She started to feel a bit more tense in the trot, and carried most of that tension into the show ring.  It wasn't too bad.  We still got a 70% and finished in first place!  She also had the high score of all the dressage rides that day, so she took home the championship for dressage!

In the over fences classes, things went a bit differently.  There was a lot of bucking (not as much as 2 shows ago, but a lot more than the show last weekend).  After the first two rounds at 2', she was supposed to be done, but since I wasn't in a hurry (my next ride was going to be in about an hour), I decided to keep schooling her.  We did a LOT of shoulder-in, and when it felt ok, I asked for canter.  There was bucking, at first, and even a very uncharacteristic rear, but eventually we worked through it.  I decided to enter her in the 18" vertical classes just to see if she was any better.  She was!  There was MUCH less bucking, and as soon as I got a good line of jumps in the last class, I retired her and didn't finish the class at all.  We ended on a good note!

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