Gia - session 691 - horse trial at Portofino

 I took Gia to The Portofino Equestrian Center for their spring horse trials yesterday.  We entered in the Green as Grass division.  I started out her day with a bit of lunging in the morning.  She was excited at first, but settled down pretty quickly, even when I asked for canter.

When it was time for dressage, she made her way, fairly well, to the warm up area.  She warmed up rather nicely.  We did a lot of positioning the neck to the inside, while pushing the shoulders to the outside, anytime she didn't want to go somewhere, or was spooky, or looky, or felt tense.  As soon as she relaxed, I relaxed and allowed her to straighten.  She was being very obedient and relaxed, so I decided to ask for some canter work, just as practice for the day when we are finally able to canter at a show.  There was definitely some bucking, but less than we normally would get at a show, and less intense.  I was able to get her back with more of the positioning and leg yielding work.  I was also able to get some nice canter moments in each direction.  Finally, this also helped to make the other work at the walk and trot seem easier for her.  So, when we went in the show ring for our test, she was nervous, but with more positioning and leg yielding, she started to listen to me better.  We ended up getting our best score yet - a 23.8%, and first place out of 7 entries!

Her jumping warm up went fantastic!  Very obedient, no bucking, really excited to jump!  In stadium she didn't like the look of one of the fences, so she had a stop at that one, and then pulled the rail on the next one, since she hadn't quite gotten herself back together.

She also warmed up perfectly for cross country!  All the jumps in cross country were fantastic, and we even had a LOT of nice canter moments!  However, the water was her nemesis again, and she had a stop there.  We ended up in fifth place for the day, but there were a lot of nice moments to drown out the bad ones.

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