All The Kings' Horses

I started my ride on Gia much like all the others recently.  I did have to do a lot of circles in the corners, and even on the long sides, at the trot today, before I got the balanced, straight lines I was looking for. Today's big challenge was the canter. It had been a while since I asked Gia to canter.  We've been spending a lot of time honing our walk and trot skills, along with the jumping and work off the property, so the canter kind of got pushed to the back burner. It showed today. I took several videos of the canter, from beginning to end.  As you will see in the videos, it started out pretty rough, but it definitely improved too. Her first few canter steps contained a lot of bucking.  I'm not exactly sure why.  She never bucked like that when I had asked her to canter in the past.  Maybe she was feeling full of herself, or maybe she was surprised, since we hadn't done it in a while.  Each time she bucked, I fussed at her and tried to...

My ride on Gia started out just like the last few rides.  Stretching circles, diagonal lines, shoulder-ins and centerlines at the walk, and then diagonal lines and centerlines at the trot.  She only needed a couple of circles to help her balance in the corners at the trot today.  She was trying to get a little quick down centerline at the trot though (I guess she's gained some confidence on that elusive line!).  So, I made a down transition to the walk, each time she got too quick, to get her thinking about slowing down rather than speeding up.  It took several tries before she just barely didn't try to speed up, so I let it go on that.  We'll keep working on it though. Next, we worked over the trot poles to the X. On Monday, when I was making the video about using a whip, Danielle had asked me if I wanted a shorter crop, for jumping, rather than a dressage whip.  I answered her with one of my favorite, and often used, sayings - "Jumping is just dr...

I took Gia to CDP Stables today for her usual visit, but today we took it a step further! Her trailer ride was very uneventful. Dylan asked me this morning why she doesn't wear shipping boots (she wears her lunging/jumping boots instead).  I like to keep trailering as easy and stress free as possible, especially in the beginning.  I typically do not use shipping boots on a horse until they are more relaxed about the whole process.  A horse will usually react quite dramatically the first several times they wear shipping boots, and I don't like to mix that drama with the stress of trailering.  Once Gia is consistently quiet for the trailering process, I will add shipping boots to her attire.  That might actually be in the next few weeks, based on how she has been doing, so stay tuned, it can be quite comical ☺. Anyway, she loaded, rode and unloaded just fine today, both on the way there and on the way home. Once there, she spent some time on the hot wal...

I received another reader question last week, so I started off today's ride with a couple of videos to help answer the question. Meagan asked: " I see in your videos that you are using/holding a whip when you ride. I thought green horses are more sensitive therefore the whip would be the last thing you wanted to use. Clearly that is not the case here. What do you use it for with Gia?" My first response to this question is one that my students hear often - "Better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it." For me, a whip is just a tool, or an extension of my leg, that I like to have on hand for whenever it is needed. Most of the time, with Gia, I don't use the whip at all, or I use it very lightly, but I always carry it, so that I am always guaranteed to get what I ask for. If I ask Gia to respond to my leg, and I don't get a reaction at all or I don't get a reaction quickly enough, then I add a tap of the whip. How hard I tap...

Finally the day has arrived where Gia gets to go over her first jump! I was a little worried that I was getting too excited about it in my head, and it would totally end up flopping. It did not flop. 😊 Gia was tacked up, for her first time, in the jumping saddle.  Yay!! Of course, nothing felt different to her. I started our ride just like any other - stretching circles at the walk, shoulder-in at the walk, diagonal lines and centerlines at the trot.  She started out a little quick today, so I had to do a lot of half halting in the beginning until she relaxed into the work.  She did need a few circles in the corners today at the trot before her lines, but nothing was bad.  Then we went over the 6 trot poles.  They were so EASY! She just floated over them like they weren't even there.  Not too slow, but not too fast either. Finally, the moment I have been waiting for - we got to put up a crossrail.  To build the small gymnastic, I...

Gia was a statue when I mounted today, and was pretty quiet as I walked off and started asking her to stretch.  For those of you that don't live nearby, we have gotten a lot of rain yesterday and today, so I had quite a large puddle in the arena today.  For some reason, she was extra worried about it.  We worked on walking through it for about 10 minutes.  The temperature had also dropped about 20 degrees since Monday, and all the horses have been a little squirrly.  My guess is that she was just being a bit over-dramatic.  Once we got through the water issue, literally, she was great for the rest of the ride. Her shoulder-in at the walk was better today, especially tracking right.  I didn't need any circles at the walk, and only a couple of circles to the right at the trot, while working on diagonal lines and centerlines.  Her stretching at the walk was very good today. Gia went very well over the four trot poles that I had down for her tod...

Today's ride was pretty much the same as Friday's, but slightly better. Gia was super relaxed when I mounted, and she didn't even move a muscle! I warmed her up with circles to stretch down at the walk, then shoulder-in at the walk, with diagonal lines and centerlines as well.  I didn't have to add any circles before or after her lines at the walk today! At the trot, we worked on circles, diagonal lines and centerlines, as well as trot poles.  She did need several circles in both directions before and after her trot lines. I lengthened the trot poles to 4'6" to start out today, but by the end, I had to move them out to 4'9".  I still had to keep her a bit collected to even make that distance work! We finished up with walk/halt transitions, and those were much more obedient, and almost square too! Going back to the shoulder-in - when I talked about it before, I pointed out that I was not carrying my shoulders straight, and that I would go ba...