Gia - session 582 - lesson with Suzin

 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 her tail swishing, fairly collected, and even offered a bit of stretch at the canter.  To the left, she was not so good.  She did a lot of bucking, and at one point, even bucked hard enough that I didn't come down quite on top of her, and ended up sliding off.  Nothing to worry about, it was very slow motion, and I held onto her neck for a few seconds trying to save it, before realizing that wasn't going to happen.  I landed on my feet and wasn't really hurt, but I do think I'll be a little body sore tomorrow, and I think I pulled my right calf muscle slightly.  Anyway, I got back on and pressed on.  Correcting her with leg and whip whenever she balked at going forward.  She did try a few more bucks, but nothing quite as big.  Eventually, I was able to get her to a half way decent canter.  Nothing as nice as the opposite direction, but she was going forward, and fairly straight, and obedient.