All The Kings' Horses

 Gia and I started out with some stretching at the walk, and transitions through stretching into the trot.  She was a bit "up" today, probably due to the cooler weather, so Suzin had us get right to work with lots of changes of direction and leg yields and moving all over the ring.   When Gia was more focused, we worked a lot on getting a true, correct shoulder-in.  Making sure she was at the correct angle, with the correct amount of bend, and stepping forward into the shoulder-in rather than backwards toward the rail.  Gia found the work a little difficult, and we had a lot of resistance, but we also had a lot of good moments.   At some points, when she felt really good, I asked for canter.  I think the first canter was actually on accident, and there was resistance, so I pushed her through the resistance and we found a really nice canter that was correctly bent and soft.  I worked on the canter several times in each direction.  There were a few naughty moments, but most of

 I worked with Gia in my grass dressage arena today.  It can be slightly more challenging to work in there because it's in a different place, in a field where other horses live, it's grass footing, and it's not as level or smooth as the main ring.  So, needless to say, I did not have high expectations for today's ride.   I was pleasantly surprised! I started with a lot of stretching at the walk, and Gia was immediately relaxed and obedient.  When we were ready to trot, we worked on stretching and transitions between walk and trot.  That was also quite nice and relaxed.  So, I decided to move on and try the canter.  It was actually quite good!  In both directions! Including the transitions!  When I asked for the canter, I tried to continue to encourage the stretch.  She didn't stretch quite as good as she does at the walk and trot, but the effort was definitely there.  She never gave any hints of disobedience, not even tail swishing.  She stayed fairly balanced and q

 Gia and I had drill team practice today with Julia and Dover.  Gia was a bit anxious when I first got on - scary jumps, scary chairs, scary somthingorotherinthegrass.  She gave me a bit of a fit about the last one, but I just kept pushing her to go forward, back-and-forth by it until she settled down.  For the actual practice she was VERY good!  She finds the rhythm of the music fairly quickly.  I think she enjoys riding to music!  We ran through our test three times, and each time was a little better than the last.  We have one more practice before our show in November!

 I took Gia out to my fields today to jump for a bit.  She was actually fairly relaxed, which is not what I expected since she is in heat, and the weather is cooler and breezy.  I started her out with some stretching at the walk, and then stretchy transitions to trot.  She did those quite well, so I pointed her at some small jumps.  She had a lack of energy to actually jump the jumps, and she ended up trotting over most of them.  I decided to ask her for the canter from a stretchy trot and see if that helped the jumping, despite the chance of some naughtiness.  She was actually quite good!  She was a little surprised at first, but she gave me decent canter transitions in both directions, and much better jumps as a result!

 Gia and I worked with Suzin today.  We basically tried to do all our transitions between walk, trot and canter in a stretchy frame.  The walk and trot transitions started out very good!  When I felt she was ready, and willingly stretching at the trot, I asked for the canter to the right (that seemed like her better direction today).  She immediately picked it up with no fussing, and immediately tried to stretch into it.  She kept her canter for quite a while and really had a good stretch and good balance!  When I asked her the same thing to the left, it was quite a different story.  She immediately started bucking, so I sat up and did a very hard half halt while sending her forward with my leg.  After that, anytime I heard her tail swish, I tried to get ahead of the buck with the hard half halt.  I was fairly successful with that most of the time.  When she would finally let go of her tension and stretch into the canter, I would relax.  By the end, we were able to pick up the canter i

 I took Gia to CDP today for a lesson, and Hayley rode her to start with.  She was quite full of herself and started bucking as soon as Hayley got going.  She was resistant to go forward, but Hayley insisted with a lot of leg and soft hands.  After just a few minutes of cantering around on a fairly loose rein, Gia was in a much better place.  I hopped on, and she felt great!  Much more forward than usual.  Hopefully, we can keep this trend going ...

 I took Gia to the Sedgefield Jumper show today.  Danielle lunged her while I worked with a student, but said that Gia was practically perfect!  So, I was hoping for a nice ride today ... I was disappointed ... Gia started right away with her naughtiness in warm up.  She was very tense, with her tail swishing, and her hind end wanting to go anywhere but forward.  I did a lot of small circles, with bending and leg yielding.  I also did a lot of work over poles and small jumps with tight circles afterwards.  She finally felt a little better, so we went in for our classes.   We had three jump rounds at 2' today.  In the first round, she was a hot mess - bucking, tail swishing, lots of hard drifts of her body left or right.  Once I knew we had shot the round, I started to work on schooling her with small circles anytime she felt naughty.  That definitely helped, and her second round was much more well behaved!  She did knock a couple of rails down trying to fit two of her big strides d

 I took Gia for a hack on the trail today for about 20 minutes.  All we did was walk, but since we hadn't been back there in a while, she was quite nervous.  I worked on getting her to relax and stretch, and she was a little better by the end.  She did have one minor meltdown when I asked her to walk through the mud.  She stopped and backed up and went forward and stopped and backed up and went forward several times.  I kept using leg and whip when she stopped and backed, and left her alone when she went forward.  Eventually, she took the plunge and made it safely across!

 I took Gia out in the field today to jump.  She was quite "up" today, even at the walk.  I did a lot of small circles with her, anytime she wasn't paying attention or lost her balance.  I did the same thing as we warmed up at the trot.  Gradually, she started to relax and pay attention.  I also added small circles after each jump if she was unfocused or unbalanced.  By the end, she was jumping very well and even cantering off nicely!  There was some tail swishing today, but no bucking!

 Suzin worked with Gia and I today, starting with stretching at the walk, and then walk/trot/walk transitions while keeping her in a stretch.  Gia was resistant to do both the stretch and the transition at the same time, but she eventually softened, and it became easier.  We worked a lot on perfecting her shoulder-in, and getting it more correct - more bend around my inside leg, with not too much angle, but with the shoulder coming off the rail.  Gia struggled with each of those things at times, but she also had some really nice moments at times.  We also played a little with half pass and renvers, both of which Gia was able to give me some small moments, and both of which will help improve her loading up capacity.  I allowed her to lengthen her trot as a reward, but also right after setting her up with a bit of shoulder-in to improve the thrust.  I could feel 1-4 good steps each time.  We didn't canter at all today, but Gia did have a few naughty moments due to anticipating the ca

 I lunged Gia over several jumps in my arena today.  She had no problem with her straightness after the jumps today, but did want to cut in a little before the jump when tracking right.  So, I put a pole out on the front side of the jump, on the right side, to keep her a bit straighter coming in.  She started with a small vertical, then a 2' vertical, then I added a barrel under that.  All that was going so well, so I made it a 3' vertical with jump blocks underneath.  She had no problems at all, and even had fun with her work today!

 I worked Gia lightly on the flat today.  We started with a lot of stretching at the walk, and then transitioned to stretching at the trot.  We did a bit of working trot, including haunches-in and shoulder-in.  She was feeling pretty good, so I did just a tiny bit of canter in each direction.  Just enough to get the correct lead in each direction for about 10 steps.  It was harder for her to get her lead correct to the right, but she didn't offer to buck in either direction, and she felt nicely collected!

 I worked with Gia in the arena, lunging over "scary" jumps today.  We started with a small vertical, then added a saddle pad to that.  She didn't care too much about either of those jumps in general, but I had set the jump up against the arena fence to give a little more of a barrier to her while on the lunge line.  She was a little hesitant about that at first, but went over the jump anyway.  It's always the things that you don't expect that end up scaring the horses!  Also, when jumping tracking right, she fell hard to the inside after the jump.  I put a pole on the ground to help guide her straighter.  She landed on it the first time, and then jumped awkwardly the second time, but each time after that she landed and went much straighter.  Next, I raised the vertical to about 2' and added a barrel.  She has jumped those before, so that was no big deal.  Finally, I added a small stool, the thing that I thought would scare her the most.  That was also no big

 Gia and I worked with Suzin today on our flatwork.  We started with a lot of stretching at the walk, and worked on transitioning to stretching at the trot.  The hard part was maintaining the stretch while making the transition.  Gia had several moments of resistance to one or the other, but eventually gave me one that was sort of good in both stretch and obedience to the transition. At the trot, we did a lot of work on shoulder-in, on and off the rail.  Off the rail was much harder since Gia wants to hug the rail with her shoulder and loses control of her haunches when she is off the rail as well.  We also did a lot of transitions, specifically halt, rein-back and lengthenings.  We worked on the lengthenings in a variety of ways to help Gia understand that she needs to sit down and push off with her hind end.  She actually gave me a lot of good moments, but just not all in a row. Finally, we tackled the canter work.  To the right, she was quite good - obedient, only a tad naughty with

 I took Gia to CDP Stables yesterday for a lesson with Charlie.  For various reasons, it had been a while since she had lessoned there.  She was a little looky and nervous, but not too bad.  We did a lot of bending, circles and leg yields to warm up at the walk and trot.  She was starting to get a little naughty, and thinking about bucking, so Charlie had me "keep her busy" with smaller circles, leg yields and haunches-in more often and more demanding, letting her know that she had a job to do.  She did throw in a couple of good bucks, but I kept riding her through it and putting her to work.  Charlie coached me to be a bit more demanding with her than I had been, so that she gets the idea that she has to work instead of throw a fit.  It wasn't anything harsh, just harder work for her in the way of smaller circles and stronger lateral work - making her work harder so she stops thinking about being naughty.  Eventually, we were able to get several nice canter moments!

 I worked with Gia lunging over several jumps in the field yesterday.  After warming up a little at the trot on the lunge line, I started with my white pipes jump.  That one is pretty easy for her, and she even just trotted it a couple of times.  Then I moved on to a harder one - the brick wall.  She stopped at it the first time, but, surprisingly, went over it hesitatingly the second time.  I had her do it a couple more times to make sure it was good, and she was fantastic for the rest of them, even eager to get to it!  I gave her a treat after each good one, so that helped a lot!  Next, I had her do my skinny barrel jump.  It's just two barrels together on their side, but compared to most of the rest of the cross country jumps, it is very skinny and easy to dodge.  She had no problems with it at all!  Finally, we worked on a new jump I have out there.  It's an old water trough that has a crack in it, so no good for holding water.  I have put it upside down, and it's quite