Gia - sessions 943 and 944 - June War Horse Schooling and Show

 I took Gia to the War Horse Event Series Schooling and Competition this weekend, and we had a blast!

Saturday was schooling day.  We started out in stadium.  I warmed her up with walk and trot work, focusing on keeping her deep and low, with changes of direction, and transitions.  She was resistant at first, but started to soften as we went on.  I took a few warm up jumps at the trot at first.  She finally landed at the cantered and we worked on that for a little bit.  She did try to buck once or twice, but I quickly shut it down by kicking her hard and sending her forward, then bringing her back and sending her forward again.  In the show ring, she tried to throw in a small buck, but I sent her forward with a hard kick again, on a circle, before the first jump.  After that, she did fairly well through the course.  She was a little fast, and not as obedient to the half halts as I would have liked, but I could have also been more clear.  

Next, on to cross country.  She did fairly well there.  She had trouble with a couple of the jumps, or some of the things around a couple of the jumps.  I was able to use my leg and whip to keep her going for all but one of them.  She stopped hard, took a breath, then we came at it again with no problems.  Overall, the course seemed pretty friendly and open.

Finally, we finished in the dressage arena with a little bit of flatwork, especially with the canter.  I had hoped that all the jumping and cantering already would have had quieted her down, but she was still a bit tense.  She very much anticipated the canter when tracking right in her trot circle, so I had to do a lot of reminding her to wait for me, but I also had to balance that with a lot of relaxation, at the same time.  Holding her back certainly wouldn't have helped things!  I was able to get through the test two times with only a few baubles here and there, but nothing too dramatic.

On Sunday, I had decided to change my warm up routine a bit.  I started by warming her up way out in the back behind all the trailers, rather than in the actual warm up arena.  It really helped her A LOT!!  She was a little tense, at first, but quickly settled and focused on me, without all the other distractions.  We worked through all our usual stuff - low and deep at the walk and trot with transitions and changes of direction, then added the canter work.  It was actually really good!  I had someone go up to the warm up arena ahead of me to make sure they knew I was still coming, and about 15 minutes before my ride time, I made my way up.  I had about 10 minutes to go, so I just allowed her to walk around in a nice stretch for a bit.  I ended up adding a little bit of stretchy trot, and even some lengthening trot and collected trot transitions, just for fun, because she likes them.  I wanted to keep the pressure off of her in the warm up ring, and make it more of a "fun" place for her to be, rather than a stressful place.  It paid off!  We went in the show ring and laid down a pretty nice test!  We had a few baubles here and there, but overall, it was pretty good!  We ended up with a score of 28%, and in fourth place out of 10.

We had a very brief, but good, warm up in stadium.  She went in and was very obedient to all my aids, and we only pulled one rail, but went clear for time, dropping us to fifth place.

Our cross country ride was our best one yet!  She jumped everything well.  I did have to use a bit of leg and whip at about 3 jumps, but she did go over them.  She went right into the water!  And I was able to find a nice pace with her this time out - not too fast, not too slow.  She listened to my half halts and leg really well on course.  We went double clear and ended up finishing in fourth place overall!