2022 Riding Journey

#19 It Was Lily and We Jumped

I thought my ride for the day would be either Twister or Mariah, and I was pretty sure it would be Twister.  I believe my trainer is trying to give me a break from Mariah and let me ride some other horses XD  Which I need because I'm getting stuck in a rut of riding a certain way to work with a black, easily-made-grumpy mare, but I honestly wouldn't mind if I kept riding her.

But my trainer said, "You're going to ride Lily."  

Lily is like Mariah, but she's not.  She also has a dash of crafty Twister in her, and none of Cordell's sweetness.  

Trainer caught her for me, thankfully.  I watched her do it, and it was interesting how she played the 'catching game' with Lily, because she did it so well and with nuance.  I want to be able to do it that well one day.  

Counting me, there were five people in this lesson.  Thankfully my trainer had us ride in that nice, large outdoor arena XD   Because four of us rode English, we took up every single English saddle that my trainer had. 

I knew every single person who rode with us, and thus have already assigned them names for this journal.  There was Friend on Twister.  James was on Riggs.  Anna got to ride Mariah.  And finally, there was Helen!  Remember Helen?  The sweet young girl?  I haven't seen her for awhile now, I think she had to change lesson days.  But today she was here, and she was on Cordell.  

Despite being the last one to grab my tack, I actually got my favorite saddle to ride in XD  Just had to throw that in there.

I honestly wasn't sure what to expect of Lily.  I did know that I had to make sure I had a handle on myself, and rode well, and that it'd be somewhat like Mariah.  

I mounted up, and of course, she wanted to step right on.  But I told her no.  And no.  And no.  Until she contained herself a little and then we went on.  If I didn't stop it then, it would have got worse.  

  Trainer didn't give us anything to do, so we just walked along the outside of the arena for a bit.  We didn't get very far before she started blowing and relaxing a little.  So I let the rein out a bit for her.  

When we'd gone almost one lap around that large arena, my trainer told me to pick up a rising trot.  Specifically what she wanted me to do was to coax Lily into taking longer steps, not faster ones.  I've done very little of this on Mariah.

My idea of how to do it was to post slower, but also larger?  I don't know how to explain it.  Like, not just touch the saddle and rise back up.  But to linger a little in the saddle.  At the same time, when I went up, to really go up and out with my body.  Thinking back over this, I'm not sure that was a good strategy, but I guess it worked to some degree. 

I also had to be careful to keep my lower leg under me, and to not 'hang' or tense up.  Both of which can be tricky when the horse is trying to speed up.  But my trainer seemed to think we did a good job and got to a good place.

Then it was time to jump.  

There were three riders in this lesson who jumped, it was me, Friend, and Helen.  I believe Anna can / does do jumping, but she was working with Mariah on some other things.

So, the way it worked was that it was like a merry-go round.  There was one vertical jump, which was only about a foot high.  It had a green horse blanket draped over it.  My trainer said that Cordell, Twister, and Lily had each jumped it before, so they shouldn't be afraid of it.  Of course, if we were afraid of it, and came into it a little unsure, that wouldn't go well.  

We would each take turns jumping it.  Then we'd turn and come back around to do it again.  Of course, you had to watch out for the others, and make sure you had a clear line to the jump.  

Again, I wasn't sure what Lily would do about the jump.  Would she try to dodge it, like Mariah, or would she be willing to take me to it, like Twister? My trainer also wanted us to have that good trot we'd had going before, which was honestly what worried me more than the jump, I was afraid she might speed up, I'd get tense and not be able to slow her back down...  Trainer also told me I could use circles as well to get that good trot.  

The first time I went to the jump, I took an long line to it.  That kinda freaked Lily out, and I had to stop her from going one way or the other around it.  But we did jump it, and after my trainer told me part of the reason why she'd done that, I didn't take such a long line again.  

Every single time Lily landed in canter and I brought her down to trot again.  It was good to know that, even if her trot was crazy fast, she wouldn't break into canter so long as I kept posting it.  

I did a lot of circles at first, to try to get that nice trot.  But honestly, a lot of it was me stalling about going to the jump.  I'm afraid I messed up the other jumping riders as well, and my circles weren't doing the good they could've.

My trainer, near the end, told me that I was letting Lily change the subject too much.  (See what I mean about her having a 'dash of Twister'?)  And I was like, "Yeah, you're right.  Come on, Lily, we're going to go do this."  

She would ask me, "Hey, can we go this way?"  And I'd say no until she was like, "Okay."  I had to feel when she said 'ok' and then let her alone.  Because once she knew what I wanted, she would take me to the jump.  My trainer said that, near the end, I got better about rewarding her when she was straight like that.  

After a good jump (I don't think Lily stepped over that little jump once), we came down to walk.  I had to really sit back and be firm with her, in a way I didn't think I'd have to be because she's so sensitive.  Sometimes, her mouth felt like a brick wall I was tugging against.  

Once we were at the walk, I had to relax.  I did a little bit on my own, but when my trainer told me to do it, I tried kinda slouching, which worked.  Trainer told me I had to 'absorb all the movement' because there was a lot of it.  

When I walked Lily out, she was willing to stretch.  I let her have the reins to buckle, although I had to be careful when it came to steering.  My trainer didn't say anything about it, so I'm assuming it was alright.

After that break, it was time to do some more jumping.  Before we began, my trainer asked us if it was alright if she raised the jump one hole.  It didn't make much difference to me, because Lily was going to launch over it anyway XD

 This time we came from the left, which is my harder side to turn on.  (I've said this before, you're probably tired of hearing it XD.) Because of that and other factors, it wasn't as good.

I got too tense and a bit overwhelmed.  Lily was going fast, and when I went to circle her, I was hanging on that inside rein.  I felt I had too to make her turn.  Obviously, she didn't like this and wouldn't slow down.  

On one of these circles, my trainer was like, "Abby, what's this circle accomplishing?"  To which I replied, "Nothing." And that was true.

Once we got a better trot, Trainer told me to go jump right from there.  I misunderstood her, partly because my brain was overwhelmed, and headed at the jump at an angle.  Lily was like, "No, thank you," and to be honest I didn't want her to jump it.  So we missed it *smacks forehead* 

So we backed up, turned, and went over it from a walk.  But that gave me a moment to regroup, and our jumps after that were better.  We wouldn't have missed one if I hadn't been like that. 

It's amazing how strong the temptation was to hang on that inside rein.  Ironically, that'll only make her go sideways, as I found out later.  

We finished up on a good jump, and walked out on a long rein to cool down.  And that was pretty much it for that lesson.  It was good fun to ride Lily again, although it is challenging.  

And for the first time in awhile, I actually finished writing out a lesson only two days after I had it :)  I hope updates will be a little more regular now, we'll see...

Actual lesson 6/21/2022