2022 Riding Journey

#13 Jumping High with Mariah

I think this is my best lesson of the year so far :)

As you probably know already, I rode Mariah for it.  It's been a couple of weeks since I was last on her.  

My trainer didn't immediately give me anything to do when I got on, so I decided to try doing that halting with the steady pressure exercise.  I could feel she was wanting to push through the bit when I got on her, so it seemed to be a good exercise.  

But I only got about two halts in before my trainer told me what to do next.  (I don't think my trainer knew what I was doing, as she turned to me after helping James and just saw me walking.)  

Trainer said we were doing 'baby' amounts of leg yield with her to correct her straightness problems.  And when she said baby, she meant baby.  

So, as we go along the outside of the arena, Mariah likes to pop out her shoulder to the inside and turn her head to the outside.  This is something that she's struggled with, and I don't help things with my own inherent crookedness.  Shorty also does the same thing, and I've been working on correcting that with him, so I already knew what we were doing.  

My trainer told me to use my inside rein indirectly to bend her back, and also to use my inside leg to push her back into straightness.  Basically the same thing I've been doing with Shorty, except that to ask for flexion to the inside I've been squeezing on the inside rein instead.  

When I felt her start to do that for the first time, I did as my trainer said and she listened.  Like, it was literally so soft, especially for her.  My trainer immediately saw that I understood the concept, so she had me go around the arena working on that.  She also said that if I noticed any areas where Mariah bulged out consistently, to go ahead and focus on those areas as well.

Primarily, I noticed she liked to do it in the corners most of the time.  She doesn't like to bend through them.  She also likes to do it near the generator, which powers the arena lights at night, but once she figured out that she couldn't get away with that, she stopped doing it. 

After a couple of laps with this, my trainer told me to do the same thing in trot.  When I did, Mariah was a little more ticked off about it, she'd bunch up and swish her tail at me sometimes.  Despite that, I still got some nice bend out of her.  It's amazing how straight and less wiggly she feels now.  

At one point, my trainer had me try out sitting trot.  Now, when Trainer says she wants you to do sitting trot, she doesn't mean just sitting the trot.  She means she wants the horse slow enough that when you're sitting the trot, it's fairly comfortable.  Not bouncing up around on a trot that's more suited for posting.  

With a little bit of tweaking, we got the trot we wanted with little protest from Mariah.  I tried my best to sit it well, although I'm afraid I might still have looked like a bouncing sack of potatoes.  I don't do sitting trot much.  

After that, we went back to rising trot and continued doing the same thing.  

When she told me to come to walk, as we did, she told me to keep holding the pressure on the reins.  It rebelled against what I'd been taught, and I nearly didn't, but caught myself.  I held it until she'd halted and backed up.  What we were looking for was for her to give to the bit.

See, my trainer explained, Mariah knows how to slow down now and will listen when you ask her to.  But when she does, she tends to lean against / push on the bit.  So, now we're working on getting her to give to it more, and thus, I may have to do more of that 'holding' when we come down to walk, halt, etc.  until she gets the idea. 

After that we took a mini break, but not for long.  James asked a question, I think, I can't remember what it was but it came about that my trainer wanted me to demonstrate what I had been doing to him.