2022 Riding Journey

#7 Spring is Coming

Today you could feel a change coming on in the weather.  Spring seemed closer than it ever had before.

My first job was the ever present stuffing feed sacks.  But, after telling me this, my trainer gave me another job.  I was to muck out Mr. Expensive horse's stall and the feeding pen that currently holds a little piebald gelding.

My trainer gave me instructions for both of them, and after finding out where the wheelbarrow / shovel were and where I was to dump it, I was left to my own devices.  By the way, I was dumping it in my trainer's garden ;) 

I'm sure you remember this expensive gelding from my last entry.  I decided to do his pen first after I'd done the feed sacks.  I'm going to call this expensive horse 'Moose'  'cause that's what my trainer calls him and it really suits him.

Moose was all too friendly and eager to cooperate.  In a way, it was really sweet but also annoying.  He still doesn't have a good concept of 'personal space'.  He mostly stood by the wheelbarrow and sniffed / fidgeted / chewed with the handles of it while I was in there.  I think he viewed me as his personal entertainment device.

The gate to his pen happened to be one of those panel gates.  And it was raised off the ground, creating a bar I had to wrestle the wheelbarrow over every time I went out of the pen.  Add that to the fact that Moose would have slipped out if I wasn't careful, and getting out / in to the pen wasn't my favorite thing.

However, I have to admit, it was nice to muck out a stall again.  

After I'd hauled out 4 loads, I went to get a drink of water.  My trainer was riding Riggs in the indoor arena at the time.  She interrupted my mucking by telling me to go catch Cordell and tack him up for Vivie's lesson.  

So, I went and caught sweet Cordell.  I had to do a bit of searching for the tack, nearly all of it was gone from the tack shed.  Turns out it was under the indoor arena roof, in the northwest corner.  

Anyhow, Vivie arrived and she brought 2 large bags of very nice looking apples for the horses.  My trainer had told her that she could bring apples for the horses, but she didn't expect Vivie to bring so many XD

It was while I was tacking up Cordell (Vivie hadn't arrived yet) that my trainer lined me out on what I was going to do next.  She said after I'd tacked up Cordell to catch Mariah for my lesson.  Oh, and while I was tacking her up, to put all the tack that was under the arena in the tack shed.  By the way, I also needed to put Riggs up when my trainer was done riding her.  

And after that she said she was glad we didn't write all of that down because otherwise I'd look at it and never return XD

I rode Mariah again for my lesson.  She seemed more grumpy than she did last time.  I realized, thinking about it later, that the first time I met / rode her, before she was a Show horse, she wasn't that way that I remember.  

Anyhow, after a little bit of trouble at the mounting block, we were off and running.  My trainer set the tone for the whole ride: straightness.  She wanted Mariah to be straight, even if that meant I had to stop her to make her straight.  Mariah must go through the corners bent the right way, etc.  

We walked around the arena first one way, and then the other on a loose rein.  Going to the right, or clockwise, is my easy side on both Shorty and Mariah.  That's because my left side likes to twist out of place going to the left, thus making me crooked and my horse crooked.  But if I keep my shoulder / side in their place, things go alright.  

I was real careful to do this when we went to the left, and therefore for the most part, we were straight.  

Then my trainer, while we were still going to the left, told me to pick up the trot.  So I shortened my reins, then asked for it, and Mariah shot off into it.  Trainer told me to shorten my reins even more.