All The Kings' Horses

Monday December 8th thru Saturday December 13th, with Danielle: The past few weeks and months, you’ve heard a lot about Gia’s grooming. However, there are a lot of things Heather would like to see Gia do better with on the ground. We strongly believe in the idea that a good ride starts with a good experience on the ground. Boundaries, expectations, and moods don’t begin when you sit in the saddle. This applies to all horses, but some more than others. Gia is definitely a horse where every relationship and interaction has a significant impact. On Monday, I began by working with Gia on her grooming. She was pretty well behaved for all of this and has settled into a routine. However, I don’t think she’s quite ready to turn over to everyone for grooming yet. There are still a few little nuances, particularly with her hind feet, that I want to work through first. So, as I do this, I am also moving forward with the next step of her grooming: saddling. Saddling has not been a major issue of h...

Monday 12/1/25 thru Friday 12/5/25: This week was a little of the same and a few new things. We started out Monday and Tuesday with the carrot ball and grooming like normal. As this has been going well, it is almost time for me to see how she does with others. Before that, I wanted to make sure that I was clear on how she felt with me doing the grooming. Going into this, I have been fully aware that no matter what method I find for Gia to be groomed will involve 3 steps. First, I will find a method that works. Secondly, I will teach Heather what that looks like and see if she can groom Gia with similar results. Finally, I will teach the grooms and see if they are able to get similar results. Remember the idea of this challenge is to make it possible for more people to work with Gia safely and effectively. At any point, I may have to go back to the drawing board to make modifications. So, to be sure I was fully aware of where we were, I mostly spent the time watching Gia the first two d...

Monday 11/24-Wednesday 11/26  From Danielle: Gia Blog-Short and Sweet (the week!) I worked with Gia again this past week on her grooming. With Thanksgiving on Thursday, Heather and I only worked horses Mon-Wed this week. This week’s mission was to find a way to keep Gia occupied a bit longer. Seeing as I have had consistent success with the carrot ball, I wanted to continue that, but I needed to figure out a way to keep Gia occupied and still. After reading one of the comments on last week’s blog from one of my students that Gia reminded her of a special ed student, I had an idea. With the same student, earlier in the week, we had been discussing self calming techniques. Her classroom came into the discussion, and we talked about how she has accepted that if a student is in their area, they can make a mess or do whatever they need to do to calm themselves. As parents, many of us have sent our kids to their room when we need them to reset or give us a chance to reset. This gave me a...