Gia sessions 1242-1245 - one small step for Heather, one giant step for Gia!

 Monday April 6th - On Monday, I had Ashley groom Gia. I made sure not to let Gia know, but I had plans for some changes this week. Gia was very good. Just to clarify: Gia is not perfect. She is an animal with free choice. The goal of the work has been for Gia to get used to others grooming her and educating the grooms on how to read Gia’s body language. Everyone has been doing a great job with their respective roles, and I feel it is time to take a step forward!

Tuesday April 7th - On Tuesday, I did not have a groom when it was time for me to work with Gia. I decided to see how far I could get with putting on the saddle if Gia behaved for grooming. Gia was very well behaved, and we got through her grooming very easily. I was curious as to how Gia would act with the saddle as it had been a while. She was very well behaved. Even when I discovered her girth no longer fit and I had to take the saddle off and put it back on with another girth, she stood well for me to make adjustments. After I put the saddle on, Gia turned to look at the arena as if she was wondering if we were going to ride next. This was just practice and Gia had been well behaved. I was a bit surprised when I saw her foot come up to paw as I took off her saddle. I told her to put it down and she did, but all the while she kept looking at me and the arena. I spoke with Heather and we decided if Gia wants to get to work, it’s time to get her back to work! It will still be a bit before Heather is back in the saddle, but I have rehabbed Gia before, so we have already talked some about this happening. 

Wednesday April 8th -Wednesday morning, I started the day by pulling Gia’s bridle out of storage and putting it back together at the barn. I did not know when I would be able to ride her, but I figured it was better to be prepared. The plan at this point is for the grooms to continue to do all of Gia’s grooming, but I will still do her saddling for a little while longer. Soon, I will be passing that task off to the grooms, as well! Gia was very well behaved for her grooming with Ashley and her saddling with me. I decided to go ahead and ride. I’m not sure exactly how long it has been, but I know it has been over 6 months since Gia has been ridden. Even though Gia is young, fit and has still been receiving all her regular maintenance, going back to work will be a transition: both for her mind and body. We will very gradually reintroduce riding into her daily schedule. For the first day, my goal was to get on and walk around for 5 minutes. As expected, Gia felt quite powered up when I got on her. This is exactly how she felt the last time I did her rehab work. Therefore, I already had a plan. Gia packs A LOT of power and is easily distracted. My goal was to get her attention solely on me. This involved two aspects: keeping her moving her feet (you don’t want to let a nervous horse stand still and think about how worried they are) and to keep making her change directions in small ½ circles. The goal of this was to keep her paying attention to me. A few minutes later, Gia audibly sighed and relaxed into the ride. Being short and sweet, we were able to expand our ½ circles to full circles with changes of directions. Not only was Gia being asked to work under saddle, but in order to keep her focus, she was also having to work her brain. While this may seem easy, it is not for a lot of horses. This is partly why we keep rehab rides short in the beginning. We ended our ride with a great feeling of accomplishment!

Friday, April 9th -As stated before, Gia’s rehab will be slow and steady. I will get her ready for Heather to ride so she can hop on when she is cleared. On Thursday, Heather received fantastic news that she is able to bear weight on her leg again. While it is just a small step, it too feels huge. Now both Heather and Gia are fully in their rehab era! I didn’t have a lot of time to work with Gia on Friday so I knew I wouldn’t get to ride her. I also wanted to go over everything with Chloe, so she knew our latest plans. Additionally, I wanted to try on a couple different girths and see if I could get a better one for Gia to wear with the jump saddle. I noticed that by evaluating her body condition, Gia has lost a bit of her top line muscling. This is very common when horses are out of work and luckily, we have TONS of experience and methods to build top line back up. Gia is young and has been completely out of physical work so I do not suspect it will take her long to get back in shape. Therefore, to start this process, I will be doing a couple stretches with Gia each day. The first two stretches I will be doing with her are belly lifts and SI stretches. The good news is these are simple activities Gia knows quite well. The bad…. well, they involve pushing on her sensitive belly and standing directly behind her. For those reasons, I will not be having the grooms do these stretches with her. In time, we may get back there, but I do not want to risk anyone getting hurt or losing confidence. Gia was not super thrilled about the belly lifts at first, but she remembered what was expected of her quickly. She was very well behaved as I modeled the saddling procedure to Chloe. Unfortunately, I did notice that Gia had some new spots of fungus on her body. This is common on warm days of summer. Gia is especially prone to fungus because she loves to play in the pond. Warm and wet do not mix well! Luckily, I have been checking her very regularly, so we caught this round quickly and she did not seem painful in any of the affected areas. With proper treatment, we should be able to eradicate this fungus quickly and (hopefully) without it interrupting her progress. Only time will tell how next week goes, but I am thrilled with all the giant leaps forward made this week!

   - Danielle