Gia - session 651 - CHP Pipe Opener CT - first show of 2023!

 I took Gia to the Carolina Horse Park for the Pipe Opener Combined Training yesterday.  I entered her in the Green as Grass division, since we are still working on the canter at home, and definitely not ready to compete at the canter yet. 

I started out lunging her, as usual.  She seemed fairly quiet, about the same as the last few shows.  Once she was saddled, I hopped on and headed up to the ring.  We'd had to pick her up at CDP, since she is still at camp, and we happened to have her very best friend, Annie, in the trailer and at the show.  And, Annie happened to have her warm up at the same time as Gia.  All of that led to Gia being quite obnoxious in the warm up, at first.  She really wanted to be with Annie, and kept trying to go to her in warm up, and kept calling for her.  Hayley was there to help coach me, so she had me put her on a small circle every time Gia tried anything she wasn't supposed to.  As soon as I felt her give, even for a second, I had to completely relax and release - no easy feat when you think your 1500 pound horse might bolt off at any second!  However, I stuck with it, and she gradually started to focus more on me and less on Annie.  We went in for our dressage test and she felt more relaxed and swinging than she has in the past.  We ended up scoring a 27.19%, and earned 9's for our medium walk and for her gaits!  

After our test, I had to stick around to watch Annie and her rider go.  Gia got quite upset when Annie left to do her test, so I decided I would be better off if I hopped off and held her, until someone from the trailer could come get her for me (I still had to stay at the warm up area to help two more riders).  I handed Gia off after a few minutes and went back to work.  Unfortunately, there was a large tarp blowing fiercely in the wind that scared Gia on the way back to the trailer.  She broke from her handler and took off on a tour of the grounds.  Luckily, she made her way back to the trailer (horses have a good sense of direction), and no one was hurt and no tack was broken.  She seemed to forget the incident fairly quickly, and went on like nothing happened.

In the jumping warm up, she was sooooo much better than in dressage (maybe her gallop around the grounds wore her out).  There were no hints of bucking or naughtiness.  She looked around a little, but then went right to work.  She was very obedient for our jump round, and we did some trot and some canter.  I really focused on staying as relaxed as possible when she was correct.  She did have one rail, but she has a hard time with the smaller jumps - she's not sure if she should trot over them or jump them.  We finished with four jump penalties, but still in second place for the day!

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