All The Kings' Horses

 Gia and I started out with a nice, stretchy, relaxed free walk in our lesson today with Suzin.  When I picked her up to medium walk, we did a few halt/walk transitions, and a little bit of rein-back.  Then we moved on to walk/trot transitions.  I had to do a few of those over, because she was against my hand, but they did get better.  We worked on a lot of exercises to help with straightness, like shoulder-in, leg yield, circles, changes of direction.  I had to be more aware of my seat bones, and making sure that they were equally weighted, or a little more weight in the inside seat bone.  I noticed, at times, that either my hips would freeze up, and then my seat bones didn't really touch the saddle at all, or they would get "stuck" in the outside.  Those discrepancies led to Gia being more crooked, and doing things like throwing her haunches-in.  When I focused more on equal weight in my stirrups, equal weight in my seat bones, and equal, b...

 Gia and I had a lesson with Charlie at CDP yesterday.  She was quite distracted by a lot of stuff going on, so I had to work a little harder to keep her focused.  We did a LOT of transitions, and she had to be super obedient, or we went back and did them again.  She was very much anticipating the canter transition, so I kept going back down when she wanted to go up.  I also worked on making my cues even softer.  She was also a bit over bent at times, so I had to work on getting straighter.  We did a lot of leg yield out, and then shoulder-out to help with her straightness.  By the end of the ride, she was much more focused!

 We had drill team practice today, but it was offsite at a new venue.  I wasn't sure how Gia would react.  It was a private farm, and it was nice and quiet, but sometimes that can be spooky too.  Once she was tacked up, Danielle took her for a walk around to check stuff out.  She was worried about a few things, but once she touched them, she seemed to settle quickly. Once I got on, I walked her around the arena, but the only thing she wasn't sure about was a ground pole (of all things).  After I let her check it out, she was fine.  Our first test was the walk/trot/canter test.  She actually did pretty good!  She did put in a few bucks at the very beginning of the first canter, but I kicked her on, and she quit bucking and got down to work!  We have to do simple changes in this test, and she even performed those quite well!  In her walk/trot test, she was practically perfect, and she was nice and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon...

 I worked with Gia in the round pen today lunging over jumps.  I warmed her up by trotting over a ground pole several times in each direction.  I had all the "scary" items, that I like to put under the jumps, very near the ground pole, so she started out VERY reactive and trying to bolt away from the pole.  I kept pushing her around, and she did eventually get over the pole. As I raised the pole to a small vertical, then a larger vertical, she did fairly well, and jumped the jump properly.  Next, I added a towel draped over the pole.  That scared her a lot, and she didn't want to go over it at all.  Once again, I had to keep pushing her on and encouraging her.  Once she got over it the first time, it got easier the next time, and the next time.  I kept on until she went over it without fussing at all.  After each jump, I gave her a small treat and a pat.

 I took Gia for a hack on the trail today.  She was a little hesitant about getting on the trail, but once there, she was pretty good.  She walked quick, and not terribly relaxed, but she did keep walking on the whole trail.  She was nervous about a junk pile when we came back out, but I did get her to get close to it and touch it.  When she did, she got a treat.

 Gia and I worked with Suzin today on our flatwork.  We started with a nice, relaxed, stretchy free walk.  Then we moved into a medium walk, and did a few transitions.  Throughout the ride today, she was a little against my hand, especially my left hand, so I constantly worked on softening her to the left, as well as pushing her off my left leg.  When we moved into the trot, we worked on a lot of lateral movements - leg yield, haunches-in, renvers, shoulder-in, shoulder-out, etc.  My main goal was to get Gia equal in both hands, but slightly bent to the inside.  I tried to use the appropriate lateral movement to help me achieve that goal, depending on how she reacted, and how she felt.  I asked for some canter in the earlier part of the lesson, but she was really against my left hand and leg, and we weren't very successful with the canter to the left.  There was a little bucking and sucking back, and she just didn't soften into it and go forw...

 I took Gia to the Sedgefield Jumper show today.  She warmed up fairly quietly on the lunge line, even at the canter.  Under saddle, she walked almost with any hesitation up to the warm up ring.  In warm up, we started right out in a fairly nice trot, and I worked on keeping her shoulders straighter.  I tried a few jumps at the trot first, but she did not elect to pick up the canter on her own.  So, I started to ask for it on the flat, but continued to focus on keeping her shoulders straight, whether she got the canter or not.  The first few attempts were short and tense, and there were a few bucks.  As we got going though, and I kept the shoulders straight, she relaxed and cantered around the warm up quite nicely.  She had a harder time picking up her right lead, but I didn't make a big deal out of it. We entered 2 open jumper classes at 2'6".  On our way to the first jump, I worked on getting the canter.  It was a little touch and...