Gia - session 577 - First horse trial!

 I entered Gia in her first full horse trial on Sunday!  A horse trial includes a dressage test, a stadium course of jumps, and a cross country course of jumps.  I kept it easy on her (and me), and entered her in the Green as Grass division, which has a walk/trot dressage test, and all jumps at or below 18".

She lunged fairly well before her dressage test.  Her warm up for dressage was very good - nice and quiet and relaxed, and obedient.  I thought her test went very well.  She did everything I asked, and was very  obedient and relaxed.  She ended up scoring a 27.2% and started out in second place out of 14 entries.  

Later that day, we had our stadium round.  She warmed up very well - no nonsense at the walk, trot, ground pole, or over the jumps.  On course, she was fantastic!  She cantered pretty much the entire course and didn't refuse or knock anything down!  I ended up missing one jump because it's number was knocked over, but after I circled to figure out what was going on, we continued on in the correct order.  We ended up with 4 jump penalties, but no time penalties.  That did move us down to seventh place though.

Finally, we had our cross country round immediately after stadium.  I put her over a couple of log jumps to warm up, and then we were on course!  She was awesome!  We cantered the entire course, and she went over every jump perfectly.  I did pop her on the shoulder before a couple that I thought she might hesitate at.  I went after her pretty hard at the water.  She definitely hesitated, but did not stop.  She did slow down in the water, but picked back up to speed as soon as she was out.  We ended the course with no jump or time penalties, and finished our show day in 5th place out of 14 entries!