All The Kings' Horses

 I took Gia out in the field today, with the intention of hopefully jumping some jumps.  However, I wanted to tackle the canter first.  As we were warming up with a bit of walk and trot work, I thought about trying her canter heading up a hill.  It would be a lot harder for her to buck as she goes up a hill.  It definitely was!  I started by asking her for her canter transitions at the bottom of a fairly good hill we have.  I could definitely tell that she wanted to get sassy with me, but she found it physically difficult.  Once we got to the top of the hill, we walked or trotted back down and tried again.  After just a few in one direction, she was a lot quieter, with a lot less effort on my part.  We repeated the exercise in the opposite direction, and had similar results.  We went back and forth a few more times, alternating directions, with the intention of trying to keep the canter all the way to a jump.  We didn't make it...

 I took Gia for a hack on the trail today.  She seemed a bit more nervous than usual.  She had a hard time standing still while I got on as well.  She only hesitated a little when we headed up to the trail.  However, she did have a hard stop and look around at the spot where it gets a bit muddier, that she is less familiar with.  After she relaxed and got through that, the rest was pretty good.

 I took Gia out to the field today with the intention of jumping, but we didn't quite get there.  We warmed up with walk and trot work.  In both gaits, I worked on keeping her hind feet moving more quickly.  She did fairly good with all that.  Then we worked on the canter transitions and the canter itself.  Having more space out in the field made it a little easier for me to allow her to work on her balance.  She still bucked a few times, when she wasn't quite together, but I was able to get several canter transitions that were not as explosive, and canters that stayed together better.  I had to really remember to keep my leg relaxed, and only use a bump with my leg to help her with balance, rather than a squeeze.  We ended up spending all our time on cantering, and didn't make it to the jumping.  However, I'm not too worried about the jumping anyway.  The big problem on jump courses right now has mostly to do with her canter.

 Gia and I travelled to CDP for our lesson today.  This time, Susan hopped on first to see if she could offer some insight into Gia's issues with the canter.  After playing around with her at the walk, trot and canter, she had me hop on.  Susan had us work on encouraging Gia's hind legs to move quicker, and more under herself, while keeping the front end a bit more contained.  She had us do this at the walk and trot.  She also had me focus on keeping Gia a bit straighter, with less bend to the inside.  At the canter, she felt that I was a bit too tight somewhere in my lower leg, or seat, and my hands.  She had me soften my hands about 30%, and instead of keeping my outside leg constantly on, to keep the haunches in, she had me just bump her swiftly with my outside leg, anytime I needed to.  That really helped Gia to keep her own balance, instead of relying on my leg.  When she kept her balance better, she kept her canter longer, and didn...

 A few months ago, I submitted an application for the 2 day Daniel Stewart clinic at the NCDCTA festival.  Gia and I were accepted into the clinic, which was this weekend at Portofino Equestrian Center in Clayton.  I had no idea what to expect about the clinic.  I knew it was about rider psychology, but I didn't really know what all that would entail. On Saturday, we arrived and found a place to lunge.  Gia was a bit perturbed that there were a couple of goats near the round pen.  It took her a while to settle, and I'm not sure that she really even did after about 30 minutes, but we had run out of time lunging, and had to be ready for the clinic. I rode in group 2 of the clinic, but one of the requirements of the clinic was that you had to be present for the entire thing so that you could understand the "rules".  As I quickly found out, the point of the clinic was to stress your brain, not your body, and really get your thinking.  In a nutshell, y...

 I took Gia for a hack on the trail today.  She was a little nervous about heading up to the trail.  She stopped a couple of times to take everything in.  Once she relaxed, I patted her and we moved on.  On the trail, she was a little quick and looky, but didn't really stop at anything.  She even went through the muddy area with very little hesitation!

 Gia started out with a nice free walk in our dressage lesson with Suzin today.  We did a few walk/trot transitions, and she was fairly obedient, and even soft through the transitions.  We also did a lot of work on bending, leg yields, and shoulder-in.  It felt very easy and soft and correct today!  We finished with a bit of canter work, on her transitions.  I had to work a bit to keep her correctly bent, with her haunches to the inside, during the transitions, but we did have a lot of nice moments!