2022 Riding Journey

#24 Pleasant Nibbs

This lesson, I got to ride Nibbs again.  We rode in the indoor arena with James, who was on Cordell, and Trainer, who was working on breaking in Yucca, one of her young colts, to the bit.  

Nibbs stood perfectly still after I'd mounted him, he didn't even think of taking one step forward.  I praised and patted him a bit for that, then sat still for a moment before we went on.  So, that issue has been resolved, I think.  

My trainer didn't tell me right away of anything that I was supposed to do.  And honestly, I didn't end up doing anything.  I tried to make sure he had a good walk going, and thought about / did a little of trying to get him to give to the bit, but honestly, for the first few minutes I walked some laps around the arena. 

Nibbs met up with my hand and took contact willingly, even without me asking for it.  Much better than when I first rode him.  

When my trainer did speak to me, she asked me how he felt.  I said he felt good, which was true.  She then told me to pick up a rising trot and go around the arena, doing an occasional big circle in random places.  

Nibbs was also more 'off the leg', which was nice.  We picked up the trot with minimum difficulty.  His trot still feels weird to me.  I don't know if it's because I haven't been riding but four times in the last month (more on that in another entry) and thus my balance is a little out of tune, or what, but I kinda have a hard time going with it.  

However, my trainer seemed to think our trot was good.  I don't think she once had to tell me to speed him up.  And Nibbs was willingly, as he was in walk, to come to my hand.  

It almost felt like he was leaning on me a little at some points, but I wouldn't let him take any rein from me in that state.  Overall, we were able to keep a steady, consistent contact together.  

We did some circles, and on those circles sometimes we would feel like he wanted to connect more.  Remembering my lesson on Twister, I worked on keeping a correct bend all throughout the circle.  

We did this going both directions, just keeping up a nice paced rising trot with some circles.  Pretty basic stuff, but stuff you need to have right early on in the ride, if you're going to do something else later.  

My trainer had us come down to walk and take a break.  John was also taking a break on Cordell.  He's just now starting to learn how to move the front feet and the hind feet of a horse.  I can see that he has learned and advanced.  

My trainer was on Yucca, and she and James were discussing how to use your leg to get a horse to move forward or step to the side.

Yucca is just now being ridden in a bit.  My trainer had both a halter and bridle on him.  The halter was for back-up and to help my trainer teach him cues with the bit.  Yucca was doing a pretty good job, he didn't throw many fits, and when he did, they were small.  

My trainer said, "Starting these horses that have been on my place since they were yearlings is like cheating."  XD  See, because not much has been done with them.  And what has been done with them has been good, positive experiences for the most part.  Thus, they are blank slates and sensitive.  They have not lost their sensitivity, and it is much easier to work with a horse like that, then one who has been dulled.  

My trainer told John a lot of things, but I'll list some things that stuck out to me.  

The farther down the leg you go, she said, the cruder the aid is.  So, an aid given from the thigh is more refined than an aid given from the calf. 

Her goal, when riding her own horses, is to get them to the point where they're so responsive, she can just start 'walking' with her pelvis and they'll go with her.  She can start 'trotting' with her pelvis, and they'll pick up a trot, etc.  

She also demonstrated how she can lay her thigh against a horse to ask for a turn.  If you dig your knee in to a horse, that actually takes your calf off the horse.  But if you can lay your thigh across them the right way, then you can use your calf to reinforce as needed.

The last point I'll mention, which my trainer has said many times and which I think is very important.  A tool that is right for a horse at one particular instance, may not be right for them later on down the road.  So for example, you need to keep your hands together most of the time when riding.  But, to help coax a reluctant horse down into a stretch, you can spread your hands apart, and it is not wrong to do that then. 

It's important to remember this, so we don't label one aid 'wrong' and never use it when it could be helpful to us.  Some horses might need that aid, even if we don't use it with other horses, or use it very often.  

After her talk with James, she asked me what I wanted to do with Nibbs.  I was just like, "Uh, I don't know." 

So she asked me if  I felt like doing any jumping with him, or if I wanted / needed to take a break from that.  I appreciate that my trainer recognizes that I don't want to be doing big, new things like jumping all the time and will give me a break from it. 

I told her that I could probably do some small jumps, but nothing really big.  Based on that, she said she might set up a bounce grid for us.  But first, she wanted me to go over the line of four poles in a good working trot with Nibbs several times.  

She said the poles were set farther apart, enough so that Nibbs would have to take one trot stride in between them before stepping over the next one.  She didn't know if he'd try to canter out, or jump them, or exactly what he might do.  

So, with that, I was left to my own devices for this exercise.  Which was fine, because it went well.  

The poles were set up at the end of the arena.  Thus, the turns to the line could be tight, and I'm afraid I didn't give Nibbs very much room to get a straight line before going over them.  But Nibbs surprised me by being light-footed enough to get through the turn without slowing down and get a good line through the poles.  He's more agile than Shorty.  

I wondered if I was going to be jounced out of the saddle as we went over them, but I handled it better than I thought I would.  I tried not to catch Nibbs in the mouth and was fairly successful.  Of course, he did knock the poles, but never very hard, and I think we even went through them once or twice without bumping one. 

We went four times over them going clockwise, and then five times going counter-clockwise.  The extra time I went going counter-clockwise was because I didn't like the way our last run through the poles had gone and didn't want to end on that.  

After that, I knew we'd probably gone through them enough and let Nibbs have a walk break.  Honestly, I think that was one of the best experiences of going over poles that I have had on a horse.  

My trainer seemed to think that was good as well.  She told me to have a bit of canter going each direction, and then we'd see about the bounce grid.  

I think Nibbs's canter might be my favorite canter to ride so far.  Our transitions were a little messy, I think I could have done them better.  For one thing, I think I leaned too far forward into the canter transition.

But once in the canter, it was amazing.  I felt that I could just sit there, keeping my upper body still, and just move my pelvis back and forth to stay with him.  It was so nice and smooth.  

I cantered a little more than a lap in each direction.  Nibbs was so good with it!

My trainer had noticed how pleasant he was being, and said that she wanted to end the ride there.  So, no bounce grid.  But I didn't mind that.  I'd had a pleasant ride, and didn't mind taking a break from jumping.  

After that I walked him out to cool him off.  But guess what, I got him to give to the bit, and most of the cool down was spent with him stretching out to the bit.  It was so wonderful to get from him!  

And with that, the ride was ended.  Nibbs was the best he'd ever been for me, and it was just a nice, quiet, basic type of ride that I enjoyed.  

Actual lesson 7/26/2022