2022 Riding Journey

#15 Bending Cordell and Transitioning Mariah

So, this round I got to ride two horses, and while I rode Mariah for my lesson, I want to record a little bit of what happened while riding Cordell, because I learned a new feeling from him.

So, I've been working on getting Shorty to step more the inside while turning.  But a constant problem both he and I struggle with is him throwing out / bulging his weight to the outside.  While we've gotten better at this, we're still not where I'd like to be.

I knew Cordell was just about the perfect horse to perform a few experiments regarding this.  He would instantly tell me what I was doing right, what I was doing wrong, and what doing right felt like.  

The thing with Cordell is that you can really feel these types of things.  Actually, he's a pro at them.  Thus, I knew when I 'pushed the right button' I would know it.  With Shorty, it's not quite that easy to tell, because he hasn't been taught this as much.  Also, he's really easy to turn because he's so skinny, that is, you can really get your legs around him to guide him and he can more easily do what you ask.  

So I experimented.  The first thing I realized was that giving the right aids to him with my legs was much easier.  Why?  Because he's just so thin.  Like, there's just enough of him to sit on and that's it.  Thus, he's easy to influence with my seat and legs.  (Cordell is just naturally this way, he just doesn't get fat.  The amount of feed you'd have to give him to get him fat would be crazy.)  

This clued me in that I needed to really work on making sure that my legs were wrapped around Shorty.  He's very round-barreled, so that's a bit of a challenge.  

The second thing I learned was what it really felt like to use my inside leg to invite him over into the turn.  Again, something I've been trying to figure out.  It felt so cool when I got it right.  I did it several times just to make sure I had the feeling down, because it was something I'd never felt / used before.  

(And when I tried this out on Shorty the next day, it did make a difference.)  

So yeah, there's some things I learned from riding Cordell.

Now, for my ride on Mariah. 

When I first mounted, my trainer didn't give me anything to do right away, so I walked around the arena, making sure that she was fairly straight.  (This was in the indoor arena.  Also, James was there and he got to ride Sage for the first time ☺) 

I can't remember if my trainer had me do a serpentine in walk before switching to trot.  It's kinda a blur.  But either way, soon after that, she told me to do trotting serpentines.  

Because this was a smaller arena, she said I'd have to figure out the right size to make the loops.  And that if she found it harder to turn one way than the other, I'd have to adjust for that.  

My main problem was keeping Mariah straight on the lines and through the turns.  An odd thing that kept happening was that she'd really bulge out to the left, (which is something I've struggled with before with her), as if she was doing a leg yield.  

One thing my trainer told me to do was, when Mariah would try to drift out, to sit to the outside before she did it to block her.  It really did help with that.  

We did pretty good, but I'm sorry to admit that I let her start falling on on the turns.  When my trainer told me to come down the walk, she fell in, and my trainer wasn't happy about that.  We went back into trot, and put her on a circle to work on that.

But it just wasn't working.  I think what happened was that, with my trainer talking and telling me all these things to do, I was too distracted to effectively stop her from drifting.  So my trainer stopped me, told me what to do, and then I went back on the circle.  

And this time, I was able to put my foot down.  She didn't drift, she didn't fall in, and we did some pretty nice circles.  

The next exercise was one that kinda threw me for a loop.  My trainer wanted me to do a serpentine in trot, but with a twist.  She wanted me to use the straight lines for a rising, more extended trot, and slow back down to sit the trot around the curves.

We want to teach Mariah that when we put our leg on, we don't necessarily mean she's to take faster, short steps, but to lengthen her stride a bit.  

With as short as the arena is, this wasn't an easy exercise.  Honestly, I feel like I butchered it the first time around.  So many things to remember, and it all happens so fast.

To remember to post, then slow down, then sit, then turn right, then start rising again...  Plus, making sure that a wiggly Mariah is straight is a lot to manage.   

(At this point I stopped work on this entry till about two weeks later because of 'life reasons' if you will.  So now, my memory from this point onward is fuzzy.)  

I also struggled with the fact that, whenever I put my leg on Mariah, she shot forward and I would get a little left behind.  Going to have to work on that.

After that, we took another break.  Then, it was time for more transitions.  This time, it was trot-canter transitions.  Mariah's pretty good in both trot and canter now, it's the transitions inbetween the gaits that tick her off.  Now, she's at the point where a couple of transitions won't make her too mad, but if you keep doing them, then she'll start fussing.  

My trainer told me there were several ways I could choose to do the transitions, I could do canter on the long sides and trot on the short sides of the arena, I could use circles, etc. etc.  But I knew that having to focus on do a transition at a certain spot in the arena, in addition to having to deal with all that Mariah would be doing, would be a bit much for me.  That is, I wouldn't be doing my best because my brain would be spread too thin. 

I told my trainer this, and she said that was fine, that we were working on Mariah and not on me, so if that's what I needed to do to get good transitions, so be it.  Then she said I could do that different ways:  I could do more those quicker transitions, like doing a certain amount of walk steps and a certain amount of trot steps, or I could let her settle into the gait before asking for a transition.

I chose to let her settle as needed.  This worked good for both her and me.  

The rest of the ride was basically me going around the arena doing these transitions.  Trot nearly always took her longer to settle into than it did canter. 

My trainer said I did a good job of 'feeling' when the transition was available to me and would be good if I asked for it.  Which is definitely something I like hearing :)  

So yeah, that was kinda my ride on her.  I believe I also experiemented with asking for flexion from her, which she is getting so much better at ;) 

Actual lesson 5/17/2022