Gia - session 557 - Drill team!

 We had our drill team practice today, but instead of practicing at home, we went to another farm.  My dressage arena is only 20m by 40m, but the drill team test has to be ridden in a 20m by 60m sized arena.  My arena is fine for creating and memorizing our test, but once we are ready to put music to it, we have to go somewhere else to practice in the larger arena.  

I was concerned about how Gia would behave in a new place, and within the constraints of drill team.  I opted not to lunge her, however, and see how she did.  I hopped on a little before my smaller partner, and took her down to the ring to settle her.  She was definitely tense and nervous in the new area.  I basically just ran through our test, but at the walk, working on stretching her into my hands and helping her relax.  It worked pretty well, and she was fairly relaxed by about half way through our test.  

Then Dover and Julia joined us so we could run the test together.  At our first outing in the larger ring, we have to video tape our test so that I can then take it home and put music to the video.  After that, we will use the music at the rest of our practices.  We were ambitious, and decided we would see if we could do the video on the first take.  Gia and Dover and Julia and I ran through the entire test with only a few tiny mistakes and we were able to get the video the first time!  I was really impressed with our teamwork, but also with my big girl who braved the new place very well!