Gia - session 683 - hunter show

 I took Gia to a local hunter schooling show yesterday.  I lunged her a little bit before getting on.  She was pretty undramatic on the lunge line.  She got a little excited when some horses in a nearby field galloped around, but settled down quickly after that.

Under saddle was a different story.  I got on and rode her up to the warm up ring.  She was a little hesitant to move out at first, but it didn't take long to get her going.  She was VERY nervous in the warm up ring.  I allowed her to look around for a little bit, and then went to work with leg yields and circles.  We did a LOT of leg yields and circles at the walk before I thought she might be ready to trot.  The trot was ok, but we still did a LOT of leg yields and small circles.  We also jumped a 2' vertical, and did a little cantering.  That was all ok.  There was a little bucking, but not too bad.  I was definitely using the neck strap, so that helped to quiet things down.  

However, when we went down to the ring to do our over fences classes (I entered her in a couple of crossrails classes to warm up in the ring, since she hadn't had a chance to get in there, and a couple of 2' classes after that), it was a completely different story.  She was quite nervous about pretty much everything, except the jumps.  She did a lot of sideways spooking, but whenever she saw a jump in front of her, even with all the flowers decorating them, she went right over the jumps!  The scary things were the camera man, the big cement footers, the parts of jumps alongside the ring, the people alongside the ring.  There was also a lot of bucking, despite me using the neck strap to help me stay out of her mouth as much.  We toughed it all out, but I don't feel like it was very successful ...

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