2022 Riding Journey

#21 Jumping Nibbsy

Have I already come up with a nickname for Nibbs?  Why yes, yes I have.  I don't know that it is, but I've found myself talking to him more than to any other horse.

So, as you've probably already inferred, I got to ride Nibbs again for my lesson.  Helen was there again, along with James.  She rode Cordell and he rode Riggs.  Together, we all rode in the indoor arena.  

Nibbs was better about the mounting block.  He started to move off, but it was rather hesitantly and I caught him before he got far.  My trainer was pleased with that.  She told me that, for my warm-up, to try to have an active walk, then halt, and then go back to that active walk to help get him in front of my leg.  

So, we went around the arena doing this.  I think we did alright, honestly, not much happened.  After that, I was told to that I could choose between trying to get a nice, although perhaps bouncy, sitting trot, or a rising trot where he took longer, not faster, steps.  

I chose to do the rising trot.  Part of the goal with it was to get him to stretch forward to the bit and to support himself.  At first, I didn't understand that, but going the one direction, we got what we wanted fairly quickly.  My trainer had me come to walk as a reward. 

But going the other way, we trotted laps before we finally got it.  It was my fault, partly, because I was giving him too many little releases with the reins.  Part of this is, I didn't know just how steady of a contact I was to have with him.  And the other was that, whenever I kicked / asked him to go forward (which was very often), I unconsciously released with my fingers to let him go forward, out of habit.  Now, that's good ordinarily, but not for what we wanted from Nibbs.  

My trainer also contradicted herself, unintentionally.  She noticed that my reins were uneven.  Now, I don't know why this is, but my reins will look uneven.  Okay, like, I will have more rein in one hand than in the other.  But the contact feels the same in each hand to me, and I'm assuming, to the horse.  

I'm not exactly sure what this is.  I can have my hands in the same position (as far as I can tell), with the reins 'even', but the contact will be / feel stronger on one side to me than the other.  

So, my trainer told me to lengthen out my left rein.  But then, she didn't want that left rein to go floppy all the time, like it was, and had me shorten it even more than what it had been before.  I don't blame her, I haven't exactly told her about my weird rein deal and unless you look down at my reins, I think it's pretty hard to notice that the reins may not be the exact same length.  

She also wanted me to use that left rein to stop him from bending to the outside through the corners.  

Finally, finally, Nibbs gave to the bit.  It wasn't as good as it could have been, but going on a circle also helped coax him down farther.  And so my burning legs got a rest.  Literally, as of this writing two days later I'm still a little sore from all that posting. 

Anyhow, we took a stopped break.  James went around on Riggs practicing some trot work, if I remember right.  And my trainer told both Helen and I what our next exercise was going to be.

We were going to do some jumping.  But with a twist.  We were going to take a diagonal line to the jump.  The jump was set up on the diagonal, and so when we went for it, we would be slicing the arena in half diagonally.  Make sense?  Also, the jump was as tall as the cinder block could make it, aka a little over a foot.  I wasn't used to having a jump that big in the beginning.

Now, I've never jumped from a diagonal line.  And furthermore, my trainer wanted us to stop in the corner after the jump.  We weren't to depend on the fence to make our horse stop, that would be missing the whole point of that part of the exercise.

The point of which is this, as my trainer put it.  Most shows are held in arenas with fences, but some are held on wide, grassy fields with basically no fences.  And you know, when you're jumping around on your grand prix horse, you don't want to have to rely on a fence to get them to stop when you're jumping in that wide open arena.  So basically, put some breaks on your horse XD

We were turning to the right, from the south east corner of the arena.  

I wasn't sure how Nibbs would be about jumping.  Did you he need me to really be onto him, like with Mariah?  Was he 'point and shoot' like Twister or Cordell?  I didn't know.  My trainer indicated that he had jumped diagonal lines before and would do well at them.  Plus, she said that Nibbs kinda had a funny jump.  He took off later than you thought he should.  So you had to be careful not to 'jump ahead' of him.  

My trainer also said that to make this diagonal line, we'd need to go up nearly to the corner of the arena before turning.  This didn't register in my mind, I guess, because I turned earlier than I should have because I saw Helen turn earlier.  

Which, you could make the line from where I turned, but you didn't have much time to make adjustments.  

Nibbs stopped right at the jump the first time.  My fault.  I was staring at the jump.  And also, I wasn't sure I wanted to jump it because Helen was still stopped in the corner in front of us.  I didn't want to risk running into her, and I should have made a circle instead.  

My trainer simply had me turn him away from the jump and take him to it again.  This time we did jump it, but again, I could have done better about it. 

The other jumps, I knew then how far up the arena to go to get a good line.  But we still stopped and / or ran out several times.  I blame myself for this, I wasn't being assertive enough for Nibbs.  He was willing to jump, but I was not, I wasn't there with him.  

Finally I got things in gear and we got two or three good jumps in the end.  We took a break, and then my trainer had us jump it turning to the left, from the northwest corner.  

This time, I was like, "Abby, you're not going to be faint-hearted about this." I now had an idea of how assertive Nibbs needed me to be.  It wasn't like Mariah, but you did have to be ready to make adjustments.  

We didn't stop or miss one jump going this direction, and neither did Helen, who had missed several along with me going the other way.  I guess that diagonal line really threw us off.

I think we made about three or four jumps going this way.  The main thing I struggled with was stopping Nibbs in the corner.  See, I would sit up to stop him, but then end up having to place my hands on his neck, slump forward and let my legs swing back.  I mean, we got stopped, but I hated doing that.  Looking back now, I realize I wasn't keeping my two point up enough, and I was letting my lower leg swing back too far in two point.  

Before I could really fix this, my trainer called my last jump pretty good and told me to walk Nibbs out.  So, I'll just have to work on it some other time. 

While walking Nibbs out, I practice getting him to give to the bit.  He did pretty good with that, and while he was stretching out and down nicely, that was when I halted and dismounted.  

So, overall, a pretty good ride on cute Nibbs! 

Actual lesson 7/5/2022