Gia - session 1079 - Ride with Danielle!

I had to be away from the farm on Monday, so Danielle took my place in the saddle on Gia.  She wrote the blog for her that day as well:

"I haven't ridden Gia in a few months since Heather has been back to riding full time and show season is upon us. However, Monday, circumstances were that Heather had to be off the farm in the morning so I took over the reins.

The first thing I noticed when I got on Gia was that she felt strong. Not strong in a bad way, but powerful. When I was last riding Gia on a regular basis, it was while she coming back into work after her surgery. The way she felt on Monday was much more akin to how she felt before her surgery! 
It had been a crazy morning and the horses were all a bit on edge. Gia was focused on her work, but not moving forward. She felt quite lazy. I worked on getting her to move forward and then resumed the work that Heather had been doing with the release of the bit. She was actually quite responsive. I noticed that when we were on a circle or on a turn we tended to lose the connection. I'm not sure if the problem was Gia's distraction or my lack of connection. It is definitely something I will continue to work on personally with all my rides and we will see how it feels the next time I ride Gia."

- Danielle 

Comments

  1. SzMay 23, 2025 at 3:55 AM

    It's up the the rider to develop the consistency of an elastic connection, not the horse, not an easy task, well worth the work to develop. Congratulations on the noticing, more than most in life.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
 So, the last 6-7 months have been a bit crazy.  You may be wondering why I wasn't blogging, and partly that was due to my own injury, and partly that was due to Gia's surgery. Let me back up. Early in July last year, I had a "bit of a fall" off of Phillip, while schooling cross country.  I immediately knew something wasn't quite right, but luckily, it didn't hurt too bad.  When I stood up, I could feel my right arm dangling quite a bit from my shoulder socket.  When I visited my doctor a few days later, he confirmed that I definitely had injured my shoulder, but he couldn't tell me how bad it was without an MRI.  We discussed doing PT first vs an MRI first, and we both decided PT would be the route to go first.  Unfortunately, there was no improvement after two weeks, so I scheduled the MRI.  It took a few weeks to get on the schedule, and then another week to get in to see the doctor for the results, but basically, I had F'd it up real good...
Read more

Gia - session 956 and 957 - War Horse schooling and show

 I took Gia to the War Horse schooling and show this weekend at the Carolina Horse Park.  When I got on Saturday morning, she started out quite tense - wanting to go up in the front, and up in the back as well, but not really wanting to go forward.  I finally did get her forward, eventually, and slowly, and we made it to the stadium warm up.  After warming up with some trot, and over a few jumps, we schooled the stadium course.  She was a bit nervous, but did OK otherwise.  So, on to cross country schooling.  She felt fairly the same on cross country - a little nervous, but at least by that time, she was moving forward.  She was a bit nervous about a couple of the jumps, and some of the soggy ground.  We "discussed" it, and then she was able to get over/through it.  She felt a lot more confident by the end. On Sunday, she felt fine when I got on for dressage.  I warmed her up in the grass, near the barns, first, where she could stay...
Read more

Gia - session 955 - lesson at CDP

 I had a lesson with Hayley today at CDP.  Gia felt great today!  We started with a nice, crisp walk, and then moved right into a forward trot.  We worked all over the ring with changes of direction and in a good, steady tempo, we also worked on lengthening and collecting the trot.  Gia was nicely obedient to everything I asked her to do.  When I first asked for the canter, I forgot to keep my arms soft, so it didn't last more than a few steps.  But the second time, I remembered, and stayed a little off her back as well.  It started awkward, and counterbent, but as I stayed soft and following with my seat and arms, she eventually figured out what to do with her body, and started to come nicely around my inside leg.  We did the same thing in the other direction (which is usually her bad direction), but it went really well!  We decided to quite while we were ahead after that!  Hopefully, this ride will carry into this weekend for the ...
Read more