2022 Riding Journey

#29 More of Maisy

Candy Sue and Maisy were still there, but it appears Jim Bean has gone home.  This lesson was in the big outdoor arena with James and Vivie.  James rode Riggs, Vivie was on Cordell, and my trainer rode Candy Sue.  I got to ride Maisy again. 

We had to adjust the brile that little Nibbs used while he was here to fit her.  Nibbs has gone back home now, and from what my trainer says, I'm not the only one that misses him.  It was quite an adjustment from Nibbs's head size to Maisy's!  We had to go down to the very last hole on the cheekpieces.  

Remember how I said last time that Maisy felt like she could / wanted to put a lot of weight in your hand, but she didn't?  Well, now she's started to.  In this way she feels like Shorty did, before we cleared that up.  It wasn't like with Firebug, who's mouth felt to me like a brick wall. 

Still, I didn't like that feeling.  So, I started in with some halts, holding the pressure until she backed off of it.  But I didn't get to do very many of them before my trainer gave me new instructions.

She told me the whole goal of this lesson for Maisy was smoothness, or to do things smoothly.  That didn't necessarily mean doing things slowly, there's a difference between slowness and smoothness.So, with that in mind, she told me to do some rising trot to sitting trot transitions.  (You should know by now that when my trainer says 'rising trot' she wants the trot to be fast enough you can post to it, and when doing 'sitting trot' it should be slow enough one can sit comfortably to it.)  

I could do these any way  I wanted; for example, a certain number of rising trot steps and then sitting trot steps, or a serpentine with the long straight parts done in rising trot and the turns in sitting trot.  Or, what I chose to do, sit the trot on circles in each corner with rising trot on the sides.  

Because that outdoor arena is so huge, the long sides would take forever to get to the end of, and so the circles wouldn't happen as often.  Therefore, I chose to divide the arena in half, and just use one half of the arena.  That way, we had to transition more often.  I used the lower half of the arena for all of the circles going to the left and the upper half for the circles going to the right.  Maisy is so fit right now we didn't have to take a break from trotting inbetween.

I had to resist the urge to "hang" when asking Maisy to keep a slow trot on the circle.  I think I should've been more firm and distinct with my aids.  It was also tricky to get Maisy as slow as she'd go without her breaking to walk.  

I don't feel I did the best I could.  But despite those things, you could tell the difference between the two trots, and my trainer was satisfied.  When we came down to walk the transition was a good one with that desired smoothness and my trainer told me to give her a pat.  (It may have been another walk transition this happened on, but I think it was this one.)

We took a walk break, if I remember right.  Then, it was time for more transitions, with circles like before, but this time from trot to canter, canter being on the circles. 

Now, if you'll remember, the last time I cantered Maisy it was chaotic.  It felt crazily bad.  And yet somehow, in the midst of that, we got a full flying change, on which my trainer immediately decided to end the cantering.  But it was so short, I never had the chance to really feel what her canter was like.

We started these transitions going to the left.  My trainer wanted me to just keep doing them until they started to smooth themselves out, because currently, her transitions are terrible when going into canter.

Sure enough, they felt horrible to do.  But now, I had more time to process what her canter feels like, and I know why it felt so terrible to me before.  It may be the biggest canter stride I've ridden besides Firebug's, and is quite a switch from Nibbs's or Mariah's canter.  She takes huge, bounding strides.  Not jarring, like Bia's was, and I can rock fairly easily with them, but to feel that for the first time would be disconcerting.

We did about over four of these canter transitions, I don't know exactly how many.  Maisy's so fit we could just keep going.  They started to feel better to me, and when I got a decent one, I let her come to walk and we took a break over with James and my trainer.  

While we took a break, Vivie got to experience Cordell's trot for the second time that lesson.  Cordell's running walk is his best gait to ride, all the others are unconventional at best. His trot is a very long stride, but when you're riding it, there's not much pushing you up out of the saddle.  Like, it's a flat trot.  So much so that sometimes it's hard tell whether he's actually in trot, or if it's a bad fast running walk.  It doesn't look much better from the ground, but Vivie did pretty good.

Anyhow, after that, it was time for Maisy and I to continue our transitions.  Going to the right threw me a few puzzles.

When I asked for the first transition, it seemed to me that she got the wrong lead.  I took her back to trot and asked again.  But again, it seemed to me that she got the wrong lead.

I went onto the next circle, puzzled.  Again, we had trouble getting the right lead, and also we her drifting to the outside.  Also, the transitions were messy.

I can't remember if I got the right lead on my own or not, I think I may have. But eventually, my trainer told me I was asking too late in the circle.  I had to ask at the beginning of the circle.  On the last transition, she had me really sit down and kick.  Then Maisy got the right lead and the transition was crisper. 

My trainer said that I'd probably heard her say that we weren't supposed to depend on the fence.  And that is a good thing. But sometimes, with a green horse like Maisy (for she is fairly green, with only 5 or so months of real riding on her), using the fence can help with the canter transition and them getting the right lead.  We don't want to be dependent on it, but we can use it as a tool in the beginning.  It also helped both of us when we were tiring out at the end.

After walking her out a bit to cool off, that was it for the ride.

Oh, one more thing I noticed.  Maisy also started to give and come on the bit, even though I wasn't asking her for it.  I did encourage it when I could.  In this way, she felt like Shorty again.  

Actual lesson 8/30/2022