Gia - session 583 - lunging over "scary" jumps

 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 deal, so she had several successful jumps in both directions over that one.

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