All The Kings' Horses

Today, we repeated all the same things we did on Monday.  Gia was a little lazy on the lunge, so I had to get after her at first, but only really in the beginning.  She was also a bit grumpy about picking up the canter today.  Two steps forward, one step back ... Under saddle, she was great with her consistent circles at the walk and trot. Her centerlines at the walk and trot were ok.  Her body really wanted to fall to the right.  I had to focus on keeping my elbows in, keeping equal weight in both stirrups, and reminding her to move off my right leg.  We were able to get three decent centerlines at both gaits by the end. Today's new item was halting on centerline.  This is definitely something that she needs lots of work on, and something that will probably take her a while to get. I took a video of our halts from start to stop (he he he).  You can see that it takes a while for her to respond to the cue in the beginning.  When I ask ...

I've decided that Gia's extra day of training, now that she is four years old and I can work with her four days a week instead of three, will typically be on Tuesdays.  I have a lighter schedule on Tuesdays, so I can take her off property to work on paying attention and working under different distractions.  This will be very helpful for when we are ready to go to competitions. Today I took her to my coach's farm, CDP Stables, in Vass, NC.  She has worked off the property before, and she has been to his farm before, so this really wasn't anything new, but she needs to get more familiar with it. She hesitated a bit, and then "piaffed" a little when I put her on the trailer.  Otherwise, she rode fairly smoothly there, getting off with no problems, and re-loading with no problems. Once there, I kept her "tied" to the trailer.  There are way too many things going on for me to actually tie her to the trailer just yet, so rather, I looped her long le...

Today is Gia's 4th birthday! It's amazing to look back at pictures and see how far she has come! I am always excited whenever a foal is born (or any baby animal!), however I actually wasn't as excited for Gia as I was for other babies.  I never had any intentions of keeping Gia.  I had purchased her mom, Fiona, to be my primary broodmare, and she was already pregnant, so Gia was a freebie.  I had plans to breed Fiona to a stallion I had used before, and I was definitely planning to keep that baby, but meanwhile, I would bring Gia up and prepare her for a sale.  I even advertised her for sale as soon as I could.  However, as many of you may know, my plans were dashed.  I bred Fiona to the stallion, and she had the most gorgeous, friendly, striking colt I have ever seen.  However, on his 8 month birthday, after having already been through one colic surgery, he colicked again and had to be put down. I couldn't even look at Fiona or Gia for a w...

I started Gia today on the lunge line with the Pessoa, working on staying on a consistent circle.  She was a little lazy at times, but overall she was pretty good with that. Under saddle, we started with the same work on consistent circles at the walk and trot.  She was a little fussy at times, but overall pretty good with that too.  I think we even got a deeper stretch at both the walk and trot today! To finish off we added walking down centerline, including focus on the turn onto and off of centerline. The turns onto and off of centerline should be more like a half of a 10 meter circle, rather than a square, 90 degree turn.  That part was pretty easy for her.  The hard part today was about staying straight on centerline and not drifting one way or the other. In the videos I took, (there are two simply because my phone was interrupted, but they are pretty much back to back), you will see how Gia starts off very drunkenly down centerline.  By the la...

I had forgotten to write about Gia's work from yesterday.  It was pretty brief since I was so busy, but I did lunge her in the Pessoa.  She was quite distracted and tense, so I mainly kept her working whenever she was not focused on me, but allowed her to relax whenever she was quiet.  She ended her session much more relaxed than she started. Today, I started with the lunging again in the Pessoa.  I have typically allowed her lunging "circle" to go where ever it needed to in order to keep the pressure on the line the same, and to keep Gia as relaxed as possible.  I decided to increase the difficulty in her lunging today, by insisting that she maintain her circle the same size and in the same place.  I should really give her more credit than I do.  It really wasn't that hard for her at all, and I probably could have done this a long time ago. We stuck with our normal lunging routine otherwise, and she did fairly well.  I think she was on her ...

I started Gia on the lunge line working in the Pessoa.  She was a bit lazy and grumpy today.  She did a lot of ear-pinning whenever I asked her to move forward, so we worked through it.  Anytime she pinned her ears, I would send her more forward.  She was becoming much better behaved by the end. Under saddle, I worked at the walk and trot, asking her to bend and counter bend.  I took two videos today at the walk - one where I was not asking her stay on specific circles, but rather letting her go kind of where ever she wanted.  In the second video, I am being more insistent that she stay on similar sized circles, in the same spot in the arena, and still asking her to bend, counter bend and stretch. It was definitely harder for her to maintain the more correct geometry, but she is ready for more discipline in that department.  I think it's fine to allow more freedom when a horse is learning what you want, but Gia has a pretty good understanding of be...

I repeated the work that I did with Gia using the Pessoa again today.  She was a little grumpy when I would send her forward, so every time she had a negative reaction, I would send her more forward.  I can't say that we really made much progress with allaying her grumpiness, but it just may take more time and more repetition over the coming sessions. Under saddle today, I kept it very simple.  I only asked her to stretch down at the walk and trot, using circles, bending and counterbending.  I think she stretched more today than she did the last time I rode her!  She does have a hard time staying on a consistent path, so I focused on that more towards the end.  I will try to keep that in the mind when I ride her the next time! I forgot to mention that I did start clipping Gia again on Monday.  I started with her front feet, and I kept her in the barn to do it (rather than letting her eat grass, like I had been doing when I last clipped her).  ...