Gia - session 554 - jumper show

 I took Gia to the Sedgefield Jumper show at the Carolina Horse Park yesterday.  I lunged her, uneventfully, and she was very relaxed almost immediately.  I hopped on to ride up to warm up.  She was a little nervous, but not too bad, at first.  As we got into the warm up ring, she felt quite tense, especially in her back, and then some bucking started.  It was on and off throughout my warm up and classes.  I sent her forward, popped her on the shoulder with the whip, straightened her with positioning to the right (she was very stiff on the right side).  It did subside, but it was always in the background.  I did get her over several good jumps in warm up though.  

We did three courses, each at 2'.  Each course did get successively better.  There was more bucking in the beginning than the end.  She was quite quick at times, and at others she was sucking back behind my leg.  Sometimes she was responsive to my half halts, sometimes she was not.  She was difficult on turns - wanting to fall out of most turns, especially to the right.  As I said, there were slight improvements on each course, but she still has a ways to go.

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