2022 Riding Journey

#14 Solid Jumping, New Exercise + Candy Sue

So, this week I got my extra lesson from my trainer, so I had two lessons.  At least, I think my trainer intended the ride on Candy Sue to be the extra lesson.  

But anyhow, my ride on Mariah came first.  It was pretty good, so let's dive in.  

My trainer told me to take Mariah out to the back outdoor arena and just walk her around, let her unwind.  Then I could come back to the indoor arena and we'd go on from there.  

However, later on my trainer said something about 'warming her up', and that made me forget about 'calming her down' which was the goal.

But anyhow, I hopped on her, and started off by doing the halting exercise, where you hold the rein until they give / back up.  This wouldn't be the best exercise to help her calm down, honestly, but I'd forgotten that I was supposed to be doing that. 

She started flexing at the poll so much guys, it's amazing!  From the Mariah who would just blaze through the bit and your aids, to the Mariah who now flexes at the poll is a huge change.  

I never did end up going to the indoor arena.  My trainer came out on Ruger and we had our lesson out there.  

My trainer saw one of my halts and liked it, but she wanted me to give the rein out to her as much as I could and still feel like I could steer.  She then said something like this:

"Now, I did say to ride her until she started blowing, but sometimes, they may be relaxed, or they may start relaxing but they won't snort, because there's not enough of a release of tension."  Essentially, she was saying that Mariah could be as relaxed as if she'd started snorting, but she wouldn't because there wasn't a huge release of tension.  Does that make sense?  

Anyhow, I think she had me do something else, but I can't remember what it was... I do remember her telling me something else though.  See, she'd taken Ruger and Mariah to a jump clinic last weekend, and whenever my trainer goes to a clinic, she always comes back with tons of new information.  

She said that the clinician had told her that she was shortening Ruger up too much when asking for transitions.  Because he is as 'long' as he is, to shorten him up as much as she was trying to do wasn't working.  As soon as she stopped trying to do that, things went much better with him.  

As for Mariah, she was told that when asking her for a transition and waiting for it to happen, she tended to lean forward / get a bit crooked.  Instead, she (and I) need to stay straight, tall, and centered.  

The next thing I remember doing was switching to doing walk-trot transitions.  My trainer gave me two choices as to how I was going to do them.  I could either do them with longer periods of walk and trot in between them, thus allowing Mariah to settle.  Or, I could do more of them, so that maybe she wouldn't settle but she would soften. 

My trainer offered this to me, which she seemed to do a lot of in this lesson and the next one.  I think she wants me to start being a little more independent, start to feel more and figure things out more on my own.  It's exciting, but also a little nerve-wracking XD

I chose to do longer walk-trot transitions, more for myself than for Mariah.  I was feeling a little tense, and I needed to get that out of me.  

My trainer saw the first transition, which was a pretty good one, and she was like "Well, if she keeps doing that, we won't be doing this for very long."  

And she pretty much did.  So long as I stayed relaxed in the saddle in the walk.  *rolls eyes*  Thankfully I'm better at that now.  

After doing a couple of those, my trainer told me to make a circle and see how 'straight' Mariah would be about it.  'Straight' being that Mariah didn't try to drift to the outside too much.