Rising above

I am referring entirely to horses at this point, although there are many other things in my life right now that I am struggling to rise above :)

But I'm talking about Gia's terrible last show. I talked to my instructor about what happened, and where to go from here. I was scheduled for a lesson on Tuesday, I asked her to make it a training ride instead. It went fairly well. It's interesting to watch someone else on Gia, I'm the one who started her under saddle and I'm the only one who's ever ridden her-- except I put Jessy on her to canter for the first time.

When a horse is your "baby", like G is to me, you let them get away with stuff you wouldn't let another horse get away with. So it was really good to see Miraya ride her and really get after her.

She recommended a couple of things... first, a standing martingale. G has a habit of whipping her head around to get away from the bit, which to be honest I'd kind of not really noticed :) I guess I just got used to it.

The other thing she recommended was a B1-Thiamin supplement, to help take the edge off. My farrier enthused about it's benefits as well, so I started her on it yesterday. We'll see how it goes.

We are going to have a lesson and another training ride next week, and then Miraya is going to ride her at the Willoughby show next weekend. I also noticed that she was in flaming, disgusting heat at the last show so hopefully that contributed to the craziness. Ugh. Keep your fingers crossed that this next show is way better.

After that, we will be super busy getting Moira ready for the event at CVP in mid-August, so G won't show again until either Sunnyside or Willoughby on August 28th. And then the big finale (hopefully) of the season is the MREC Labour Day show, which I'm hoping to actually JUMP Gia (gasp!) So we're going to have to work super hard through August to get her going over poles. I don't have high expectations, some crosspole and 2' classes would make me perfectly happy.

We will still have the Sporthorse show on the 23-25th of September to round out the year, but that's no biggie, judging by the last Sporthorse show :)

I am trying to stay fluid in my goals for her. Honestly, even watching her have temper tantrums with Miraya riding, I still had to be grateful because this time last year I was wondering if she would ever be rideable at all.

We'll get there! We're in no hurry.