Gia - session 864 - first show of the year!

 I took Gia to the Pipe Opener CT at the Carolina Horse Park yesterday in the Starter division (walk/trot/canter dressage, and jumps are 2'3").  I started out by lunging her.  She was doing fairly well, and I was about to bring her in, but then there were a couple of loose horses that got her a bit distracted and upset, so we had to go a bit longer.  (It was VERY windy yesterday!) 

It took her a little while to get to dressage warm up.  I let her stop and look at everything, and relax, before encouraging her to step on.  We stopped a lot.  Once in the warm up, she was REALLY GOOD!  We worked through all our usual stuff, but she was very obedient, fairly relaxed, and even cantered ok!

Our dressage test went fairly well.  We got several 8's, but we did get a 4 for our right lead canter.  It was quite tense and tight. However, we scored fairly well - 33.3% and started in third place.  

Her warm up for stadium also went really well!  She jumped well, and when she cantered, she was super relaxed.  Our jump round was going really well.  She was a bit fast, but obedient, and jumping well.  However, when we got to the last jump, she didn't like the plank on it, and stopped hard and sudden.  I had been in the process of adjusting my position at that exact moment, so I was a bit precarious, and ended up going right over her head and landing on my a$$ in the dirt.  At least it was soft, and it wasn't muddy!  She stayed right with me, I got back on, and we went back over it.  

Not the way I wanted the first show to go, but it happens.

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