All The Kings' Horses

I took Gia to CDP this morning for our lesson.  She was very good walking in her shipping boots - no overreacting.  It only took two attempts at the trailer to get her on.  She seems to be understanding that it's just going to make her life easier to follow directions. Charlie had us work on staying straight as we warmed up at the walk and trot with transitions, a little collecting and lengthening, a tiny bit of leg yield, and a tiny bit of haunches-in.  When we cantered to the right, I focused on keeping her straight, keeping my leg on, keeping a consistent feel of her mouth, and not letting the canter stride get too big - half halting just enough to collect the stride, but then enough leg to keep going, then half halt again to collect.  Cantering to the left took all that, plus a little bit more.  Rather than thinking about keeping her haunches to the inside, I tried pushing her shoulder to the outside, just enough, so that I could feel  her haunches trail to the inside just a li

 Gia went for a hack on the trail today, with Danielle in the irons.  I was riding Phillip, another young horse in training, and he is quite nervous to go out on the trail by himself, so Gia went first and he followed.  She was nervous about a few things going into the trail, as well as coming out of the trail, so Danielle tried to get her to touch them.  Phillip walked right up to them and touched them all first, no problem whatsoever.  Eventually, Gia also touched them, got a click and a treat.  Phillip turned around to see where his treat was too ☺.  On the trail both horses were mostly good, except for the muddy area.  I wanted Gia to go first, to show Phillip the way, but she was quite resistant today.  After several attempts on Gia's part, I decided to try Phillip first.  It took him a few tries, but then he went on ... and showed Gia how to do it.  Sigh.  We went back and forth several times through the area, each horse getting a turn at leading.  They were both doing it qui

 I took Gia out to the stadium course we have in the field for a light jump school.  We mostly worked on her flatwork in the field, and added jumps in when everything was good. I started her out with transitions between walk and trot and halt, depending on how she was going, and what she needed at the time.  I focused on getting her to respond to my up transition cues, and also my half halts.  I focused a little bit on straightness, but she didn't need much.  Sometimes, when she was not as responsive to my half halts, I circled her around a jump.  When things were good, and she was obedient, we took jumps.  The jumps were all fairly good.  After the jumps, we worked on getting back to obedience.  At first, it took her a little bit, but by the end, she came back to me much quicker.

 Gia and I had a nice free walk to start things out today with Suzin.  She came up nicely to a medium walk.  She was quite upset about the stall water buckets being cleaned and refilled, so there was a lot of spooking going on near the barn.  We just kept moving on and working through it.  We did a lot of work on transitions between all gaits, including canter, and keeping everything together.  There were a lot of good moments, but definitely moments that weren't so good.  We had some nice canter moments though!

 Gia did a lot better getting on the trailer today!  She walked off, almost unfazed, with her shipping boots.  We approached the trailer the first time, and she put two feet on, hesitated, I gave her a few seconds, asked for more, then she came off.  I promptly put her to work, then went to put her back on the trailer.  The only thing I did differently is that I led her from the "off" side.  She often likes to stand crooked, so I was hoping this would get her straighter, and I would also already be on the side I was planning to work her from if we had to go at it again.  She went further up the trailer, but got her head on the wrong side of the divider, so I gently helped her move it back over, then she finished loading, and we were all good to go! At CDP, she started out very anxious, so I put her to work right away.  Charlie had me ride her much straighter, so I worked on going in straight lines across the width of the arena, and changing direction each time.  She was a lit

 I had intended to take Gia out to the field for a jump school today, but as soon as I got on her, she was anxious and tense.  I decided to stay in the arena and make it a flat day.  We went right to work - deep, low and forward at the walk.  We did lots of changes of direction and bend.  I worked on slowing my seat to slow her tempo.  We did several walk to trot to walk transitions.  She was resistant and messy at first, and also wanted to be explosive.  I kept riding her deep and low and forward, kept changing direction and bend, kept asking her to move off my leg and yield to my hand.  I slowed her tempo by slowing my posting.  Eventually, her trot settled down.  We did a little bit of leg yield on a straight line, and she was obedient to that.  We did a tiny bit of baby shoulder-in (especially past "scary" stuff), and she was quickly obedient.  Since she was listening, and "on the aids", I did ask for canter each way.  I only did a few steps at a time to begin w

 I free lunged Gia over jumps in the round pen today.  We started with three poles on the ground about 9 feet apart.  She had to trot through them, then canter through them.  Then I started raising them on the rungs of the round pen.  We eventually got up to the third rung of the round pen.  It was very easy for her when the poles were flat.  As they started to go up, she started to get a bit anxious, and tried to anticipate what I wanted.  I had to get her to slow down a lot, for a while, before she got the idea.  Eventually, I was able to stand very close to the poles, and cue to her whether to trot through or canter through, and she was very obedient!

 I started Gia with a nice, stretching, free walk in my lesson with Suzin today.  She had us work on a serpentine at the free walk, and practice changing bend using my seat bone.  Gia was fairly responsive to that.  Then we had to pick up to the working trot without her inverting.  That was much harder for her.  I had to encourage her to soften, and pick the right moment to ask, but Gia also had to be responsive to my leg aid.  It took a few tries before she got it correctly.  At trot, we worked on getting Gia a bit straighter.  She wanted to overdo her haunches to the left, and be too soft on the right side.  I had to get her body straighter, without having her swing her haunches back over to the right.  Easier said than done, but we did get a lot of good moments.  She did have some moments when she was worried about some things going on outside the arena, so we also worked on shoulder-in to help her get past it.  That was fairly successful.  Then we took shoulder-in right into the ca

 Gia was a bit difficult about getting on the trailer today.  She would step up on the ramp with her front feet, but not with her back feet, look around for a few minutes, and when I would encourage more forward movement, she would back right off.  As soon as she did, I put her to work.  This went on much longer that the last two times, but I just kept working her until finally she decided that it was much less effort to get on the trailer than to work in the yard. At CDP Susan rode Gia first, to see about working through some of her issues towards the canter.  She helped her work through her "spooking by the gazebo" issues as well.  She worked on riding her straighter, more forward, with a quicker step, and a more forward hand.  When I got on, and Susan coached me, she had me do much of the same.  I had to focus on keeping Gia straighter between both legs and hands, and not allowing, or asking, for so much bend.  I also had to focus on the step of each of her hind legs more,

 I took Gia for a hack on the trail today.  There were a few things that she was worried about as we made our way to the trail.  I got her to walk over the different colored ground a few times, and touch the two scary things a few times.  Each time she did what I asked, she got a click and treat.  On the trail, she was fairly relaxed.  I did have her go through the muddy water area.  She was resistant and nervous about it the first time in each direction, but once she got through it, she got a click and treat.  I did have her repeat it a few times each way.  Each time got easier and easier.

 We had a dressage clinic at Castle Farm today with Suzin.  Gia and I rode in a group lesson with two other riders.  We did a lot of work on various figures - circles, half circle reverses, inverted reverses, leg yields, centerlines.  We worked a lot on bending and straightening and shoulder-fore.  Gia was mostly responsive, but I did have to get after her a couple of times with the whip when she wouldn't respond promptly to my light leg cue.  At the end we did a little canter.  Gia needed one reminder to respond to my leg to pick up the canter.  After that, she was much better.  We had one sloppy down transition, and then our other ones were better.  Overall, her canter was quite nice - relaxed, obedient, rideable!

 Gia was pretty good about her shipping boots this morning.  She did not try to kick them off at all.  She started to get on the trailer right away, but then she paused ... and then she backed off.  So, right away, I started moving her hind end, and backing her up, alternating direction each time she backed off the trailer.  When she finally did get on the trailer, it took about 2 fewer tries than last time.  A small bit of progress, nonetheless. At CDP, Charlie had us work on leg yields, collecting, lengthening, haunches-in, all at the walk and trot, especially, tracking left.  I had to work on doing more with my leg and less with my hands, and she was more responsive to my leg.  In the canter, when she bucked, it was only tracking left, when she would lose control of her haunches and they would swing to the outside.  When that happened, I had to work to keep her going, even if it was just at a trot.  Once she was forward again, we would halt, then change direction and go again on the

 I started Gia out with a nice, long, stretchy, free walk in our lesson with Suzin yesterday.  As I picked up the reins, I worked on getting her to soften and yield to my fingers at the walk, and through the transitions into trot.  When I asked with a light leg aid for the up transitions and she did not respond promptly, I followed up quickly with a pop of the whip.  She started to give me much nicer transitions!  We worked on bending, leg yields, stretching, getting her neck nice and long and low.  We also worked a bit on shoulder-in and baby half-pass at trot.  Gia was actually giving me some real nice moments there!  We had some nice canter transitions, and some that weren't so nice.  When she was not responsive, and I followed up with the whip, she sometimes retaliated with bucking or kicking out.  I kept at her until I got what I wanted.  I always got what I wanted.  However, one time, she almost won.  She bucked me up so high, that when I came back down, I landed in front of

 I took Gia out to a different field to lunge over some jumps we haven't done in a while.  I also took out a small flower to put in front of the jumps.  She had no problem with the flower, or any of the jumps.  However, there was a horse toy in the field, so I decided to use that in front of one of the jumps as well.  She absolutely did not like that at all, and had a big stop.  I made her go over the jump, letting her know that it was not acceptable to stop.  She came back at it, and hesitated, and rushed, but did go over it.  After about the third or fourth time, she started to jump it more relaxed.  I did one other jump with her, with both the flower and toy on top of the jump.  She did that one just fine.  After each successful jump, I clicked, and she got a treat.

 I took Gia to the Horse Trial at Portofino Equestrian Center yesterday.  It was a crazy busy show for me, for multiple reasons - lots of horses going, lots of students competing, I had three horses to ride myself, and on top of all that we are dealing with an out break of  Strangles  all over North Carolina right now, so we had a lot of extra biosecurity precautions to take at this show.   Gia was lunged in the morning, but not by either of her usual people, so I'm not sure exactly how she did.  In dressage warm up, she was ok.  They had us change warm up rings a couple of times, so it was difficult for her to get settled.  There were also a couple of riders that nearly ran into her, and that bothered her a lot.  I did a lot more transitions in this warm up than at the last show, but she still let out quite a few bucks while we were trying to get the canter.  We did finally manage to get it a couple of times.  The test was ok - not our best, but not our worst.  We did get all our

 Gia and I worked on dressage again today, doing pretty much the same as we did on Wednesday.  She seemed to get it a little better today, but she was also anticipating the canter transition a lot.  We did a lot of transitions between all the gaits, in addition to the lateral work to get her haunches more to the left.

 Gia and I worked on our dressage at home today, doing much of the same that we did yesterday.  I worked on being much more clear with my leg aids, as well as other aids.  We ended up having a lot of good canter moments!  We also had a few moments that weren't so good, including a couple of big bucks, but we recovered, and finished with a run through of the test we will be riding at the show this weekend.

 Gia was slightly better about kicking out at her shipping boots today.  She only briefly kicked out at them halfheartedly, but immediately stopped when I corrected her.  However, her trailer adventures went on longer today than last time.  Each time she approached the trailer, she got about half way up the ramp and then stopped.  I would ask her to go further, and she would back up, so we would start working in circles.  We started with 3 rotations to the left, then the second time it was 4 rotations to the right, and each time we alternated direction and increased the number of rotations.  I also asked her to back up whenever she got too much in my space.  After each "set" of rotations, we would approach the trailer again.  If she backed off when I asked for more, then we went back to the rotations.  I believe we got up to about 12 rotations before she finally decided that it was a lot more work to be outside the trailer than it was to be inside the trailer.  Once she got o

 I took Gia for a hack on the trail today.  She was not bothered by anything in particular at all today!  She was a little quick at times, so I slowed her down, and she was responsive to that.  She looked around a little more than a "normal" amount, but she didn't spook or seemed overly worried.