All The Kings' Horses

 Amazingly, Gia was really good today!  I hadn't ridden her since last Tuesday, due to the holidays, and it was super windy today.  So, I thought things would be a little sketchy, but she was fantastic, even a little lazy!   There was a little bit of drama as we worked today, but nothing too bad.  When I first got on and started walking her around, stretching down, she noticed the new "toy" I had bought recently for her, which came in a few days ago.  It's a set of cavaletti blocks that I can use to build different kinds of jumps.  It's the same thing that Charlie uses as filler for some of his jumps that she tends to be terrified of, causing several stops.  I bought her a set of three different colors to practice over.  (One set came in this weekend, but the others are still backordered.)  When she first saw the white blocks, she slammed on the brakes.  I had her approach them, asking her to move forward off my leg, and always...

 Gia was quite tense today.  I'm not really sure why, but it is what it is.  She started before I even walked her into the ring at CDP.  She saw "something" (who knows what), as we were walking into the arena, and slammed on the brakes.  It took her a few hesitant steps to get all the way in.  Each time she took a step forward, I relaxed, patted her and tried again.  When we finally got in the ring, I gave her a treat.   In the arena, she was very looky at pretty much everything.  I tried not to make a big deal about any of it (definitely a challenge for me).  Each time she spooked, I put her on a circle, asking her to bend away from the direction of the "scary thing" by keeping my outside hand at the withers and using a leading inside hand, as well as a pushing inside leg, to make her body move towards the spooky item.  As soon as she relaxed, I would relax and we would carry on as if nothing had happened.  It took a whil...

 It was quite windy out today, so Gia was a bit tense.  It took a bit longer than usual to get her to stretch down, and I really only got one or two good walk/trot transitions.  We did start with stretching at the walk.  We walked all around the ring, including over some ground poles that were scattered about.  I was really trying to focus on being straight and symmetrical, but she was so tense from the wind, that it didn't seem to make a difference in the beginning.   Once things were a little better, we worked on the same stuff at the trot.  I had several sets of trot poles set up around the ring.  When she was correct over a single pole - had a steady tempo, was straight and was stretching a little - then we went over two poles.  When those were good, we worked over three poles.  Each time we got a good trip over the poles, I stopped and offered her a treat.  She really needs to build more confidence over obstacles, so I wil...

Well, today started out good.  Suzin came over to offer quite a bit of insight into gymnastic exercises that I could do with Gia.  I warmed her up with some stretching down at the walk and trot.  When she was a bit looser, I walked and trotted over several single poles around the arena.  Then Suzin had us come down centerline over three trot poles while she adjusted them to fit Gia's stride.  I had done this exercise with her a while ago, but her stride has definitely increased since then!  Sometimes Gia came through the poles too quick, sometimes too slow, sometimes she hesitated, sometimes she stumbled.   Eventually, she was coming through them more confidently, so that's when Suzin added a crossrail.  I had to work on sitting down in the saddle at the correct moment and Gia had to work on going forward to the jump.  If I felt her hesitate or back off or just come in too slow, I would send her forward with a squeeze of my leg.  If...

 I'm a little behind in my blog posts, so we are doing a two-fer today! On Tuesday, I rode Gia at CDP with Hayley in a jump lesson.  Things went much better than last time.  I'm honestly struggling to remember specifics, other than we did several individual jumps and then put them together in a course.  Gia didn't stop at anything, and she had some lovely moments at the canter as well.  Hayley took a couple of videos, so hopefully, I will have those to add to my post soon!  Throughout the ride, Gia had been spooking slightly at the gazebo and at a jump filler that was laying off on the side.  After her lesson, I took her to each of those and had her "hang out" for a while so she could relax about it.  It didn't take too long with the jump filler, but it did take a while at the gazebo.  I think she may have been more concerned about the person sitting in the car near the gazebo, but it was a little hard to tell. On Wednesday we had a dressage ...

 Gia felt very tight and against my hand for most of our ride today.  I really struggled to get her to reach down and stay soft.  I did a lot of work on my own position - equal weight in both feet, equal weight in both seatbones, keeping my body aligned with her and her body aligned with our path, keeping my hands soft and equal weight in each.  I definitely felt some good moments, but they were fleeting, and it was hard to keep them consistent.  We mainly stuck with traveling around the ring, just off the rail, so that we could really focus on straightness.  I asked for a few different figures/movements to try to help her find the straightness - leg yield, shoulder-in, small circles, etc.  We did a few circles and changes of bend when things were a little better.  We also did a few walk/trot transitions when things were a little better.  By the end of the ride, I did feel like she was a little softer, but it still didn't feel as consistent a...

 I warmed Gia up with flexing and stretching at the walk and trot.  We also did a few walk/trot transitions, and several changes of bend.  She was nicely responsive to all that! I had several jumps set up from a lesson the other night, so I pretty much left them all as they were,  but made sure that they all had ground poles to help her out.  Then I just proceeded to jump whatever looked good.  We started with a smallish X, but then moved on quickly to a vertical. I kept everything fairly low and plain, and she jumped everything nicely in stride and with lots of confidence.  She even tackled a 4-5 stride line and a 1 stride combination like they were nothing.  If anything, she took a little moment to think about the 1 stride, but I never got the idea that she was going to stop, just that she needed to assess how to work through it.  Whenever she cantered afterwards, I worked on her straightness and balance at the canter.  She was fairly ...