So, this week I got my extra lesson from my trainer, so I had two lessons.  At least, I think my trainer intended the ride on Candy Sue to be the extra lesson.  

But anyhow, my ride on Mariah came first.  It was pretty good, so let's dive in.  

My trainer told me to take Mariah out to the back outdoor arena and just walk her around, let her unwind.  Then I could come back to the indoor arena and we'd go on from there.  

However, later on my trainer said something about 'warming her up', and that made me forget about 'calming her down' which was the goal.

But anyhow, I hopped on her, and started off by doing the halting exercise, where you hold the rein until they give / back up.  This wouldn't be the best exercise to help her calm down, honestly, but I'd forgotten that I was supposed to be doing that. 

She started flexing at the poll so much guys, it's amazing!  From the Mariah who would just blaze through the bit and your aids, to the Mariah who now flexes at the poll is a huge change.  

I never did end up going to the indoor arena.  My trainer came out on Ruger and we had our lesson out there.  

My trainer saw one of my halts and liked it, but she wanted me to give the rein out to her as much as I could and still feel like I could steer.  She then said something like this:

"Now, I did say to ride her until she started blowing, but sometimes, they may be relaxed, or they may start relaxing but they won't snort, because there's not enough of a release of tension."  Essentially, she was saying that Mariah could be as relaxed as if she'd started snorting, but she wouldn't because there wasn't a huge release of tension.  Does that make sense?  

Anyhow, I think she had me do something else, but I can't remember what it was... I do remember her telling me something else though.  See, she'd taken Ruger and Mariah to a jump clinic last weekend, and whenever my trainer goes to a clinic, she always comes back with tons of new information.  

She said that the clinician had told her that she was shortening Ruger up too much when asking for transitions.  Because he is as 'long' as he is, to shorten him up as much as she was trying to do wasn't working.  As soon as she stopped trying to do that, things went much better with him.  

As for Mariah, she was told that when asking her for a transition and waiting for it to happen, she tended to lean forward / get a bit crooked.  Instead, she (and I) need to stay straight, tall, and centered.  

The next thing I remember doing was switching to doing walk-trot transitions.  My trainer gave me two choices as to how I was going to do them.  I could either do them with longer periods of walk and trot in between them, thus allowing Mariah to settle.  Or, I could do more of them, so that maybe she wouldn't settle but she would soften. 

My trainer offered this to me, which she seemed to do a lot of in this lesson and the next one.  I think she wants me to start being a little more independent, start to feel more and figure things out more on my own.  It's exciting, but also a little nerve-wracking XD

I chose to do longer walk-trot transitions, more for myself than for Mariah.  I was feeling a little tense, and I needed to get that out of me.  

My trainer saw the first transition, which was a pretty good one, and she was like "Well, if she keeps doing that, we won't be doing this for very long."  

And she pretty much did.  So long as I stayed relaxed in the saddle in the walk.  *rolls eyes*  Thankfully I'm better at that now.  

After doing a couple of those, my trainer told me to make a circle and see how 'straight' Mariah would be about it.  'Straight' being that Mariah didn't try to drift to the outside too much.  

Like the trot transitions, Mariah did this nicely as well.  We did a couple of circles in the corners in walk before my trainer told me to go to trot.  "But," she said, "Try to move your hands forward if she needs to stretch out a little for the transition, so you don't catch her in the mouth."  

The first wasn't the best, so she had me come to walk and try again.  But again, it wasn't good enough.  So she stopped me and demonstrated on Rugar. 

See, when you ask a horse to switch to a faster gait, sometimes they just need to stretch out their neck a bit more to do it.  And if you're not ready / allowing for that,  you can catch them in the mouth.  It's not a big thing, but it sure doesn't make a horse *want* to trot.  

I got the idea, I think.  Still, the next transition wasn't great.  My trainer didn't see, so I didn't get corrected for it and went on, but I could have done better *face palm* I'll work on it next time.  

Trotting the circles wasn't too bad.  I could tell she drifted more on her and my's 'bad side', that is, going counter-clockwise.  

My trainer asked me about which side I thought she might be drifting more on, and I told her that.  She told me one way to fix that was to 'hold' my outside rein.  

Now, I've done this with Shorty a lot, because he likes to bulge out so much when turning.  So I already knew what the feel of it was like.  You basically just tighten you hand on that outside rein, preferably before or just as they start to bulge / drift out.  And you hold it for as long as needed.

That helped with the drifting.  I also noticed that both she and I tended to cut the last part of our circle short.  I didn't really get to work on it that lesson, but marked it down for next time.  

My trainer also mentioned that if she was falling in, to use that indirect rein like we did with leg-yielding.  But that was less of a problem than her drifting.  

One thing my trainer is telling me to do more often is to keep my fingers 'closed' on the reins.  I tend to hold them more on the 'tips' of my fingers if you will, than in the palm of my hand.  It works for being light on her mouth, but not if she should suddenly stumble, bolt, etc.  So my trainer's new agenda is getting me to keep them closed XD

After that exercise, Trainer had me come over to the middle and halt to take a break / discuss what we were going to do next.  

She wanted me to jump Mariah over the telephone log pile a couple of times to get her warmed up before we did this new exercise.  (New for me, anyway.)  

This new exercise was going over three raised poles on a curve.  Another name for the poles would be cavaletti.  It's a little tricky because it's raised and on a curve, I'd trotted the circle of poles, and also gone over poles in a straight line, but not one over a row of curved poles. 

But first, we did some jumping.  

Now, this 'pile of telephone poles' is over a foot tall but definitely not two feet.  It's like, two poles on bottom and one pole on top of them.  I've only jumped them once, and it was my first solid jump.  

I personally don't feel the jumping we did was the best we've done, but my trainer thought it was "beautiful."  

I had some trouble coming around the curve to the jump line, it was like,  she was trying to drift all the way to outside.  But she got hissy mad when I tried to correct her?  It was a weird deal,  It got better the more we did it, but never went completely away.  My trainer never said anything about it.

Going to the jump, it was a little hard not to mess with her.  It felt like she wasn't quite 'locked on' to it and I was half afraid we'd miss it.  But I knew that I dare not touch her too much, so I corrected her a little but left her alone otherwise, and while we may not have jumped it dead center, we still got over it every time.  

My trainer was very pleased.  She said "Beautiful Abby, beautiful!"  And it was good fun to jump a solid jump :)  I think Mariah could be a really good cross country horse if she had a bold rider, cause she jumps like to even brush it is an utter insult XD  

On the last jump, my two point was particularly good and soft.  My trainer said that was the two point I needed more.  

After jumping that 3 or 4 times, it was time to tackle this new exercise.  

My trainer said I would have to be picky about my accuracy, to make sure I got the right line going through.  This actually wasn't that much of a problem, I was more worried about us stumbling and falling down. 

The key with this exercise is bend.  If the horse is not bent correctly, they are going to knock the poles.  On the other hand, if they are, they'll knock them less, or not at all.

The first time, we went through it in walk and it was not pretty.  I stared down at the poles too much.  My trainer told me to only look at each pole until Mariah's head covered it, then look to the next one, then the next one.  In other words, to look at each pole successively.  

I did the next time around, and it really helped.  My trainer said she didn't know exactly why it did, maybe because us looking successively helps the horse think successively.

We went through it one more time in walk and then it was time to trot.  Again, the first time was terrible, but it was worse than it had to be.  Why?  Because I tried to ride through it rising to the trot.  Yeah, that worked terrible.  I got bounced around and no doubt Mariah was not happy.  

My trainer was like, "Getting in two point would be better next time"  XD  And I was like, "Yeah!"  

It was better next time, I tried to look at the poles successively, and it went so much better.  I think it was only two or three more times until we went through it one time really smoothly and we came to walk.  The main thing is to get a good line, not look down too much, and stay in two point XD  

Going the other way (counter-clockwise), I struggled with getting the line a little more.  I don't know why, but I've noticed she really, really likes to drift out going that way.  Thus, our line wasn't the best several times.  My trainer told me to turn earlier to make up for it, and it was better after that.  Another time she told me Mariah needed a better trot as well.  

The second to last time was good, but not the best because I was 'hanging' a little on that inside rein, my trainer told me.  Next time I was careful not to do that and it went much better, so that was our last one.  

Overall, it wasn't too bad.  I set up my own exercise at home for Shorty, only the poles were not raised and we only walked over them.  Still, it was interesting to feel and work on.  

My trainer told me to walk her and do what I wanted until I was satisfied.  I did a serpentine, and let her have a loose rein.  I struggled with that bulging out thing going one direction, I'm sure that it has something to do with my own crookedness, but I haven't figured it out yet. 

At the end something so amazing happened.  I decided to work a little bit on flexion.  I actually got her to flex without halting, and I let out the rein.  She took it down and guys, I felt her back come up!!!

More than that, when she started to come out of it, I just touched the rein a bit and she flexed!!!!!  She went back down into the stretch!!!!

This is such a huge change for her, and to feel her back up like that was so *chef's kiss*.  I got off right then and there, that was exactly how I wanted to end the ride.    

Right after that, Trainer had me ride Candy Sue.  Let me tell you a little bit about her, okay?

She's a chestnut mare who's above 15 years of age.  She's sweet, like a grandma in a way, and she really does try.  But her confirmation is the worst out of any horse I've ridden.  

She has a super long back, and the highest point of that back is not her croup, but her tail head.  Yeah, the highest point is where her tail connects to her body, not where her spine connects to her hindquarters.  I didn't even know that was a possibility.  

In addition, one of her shoulder blades is positioned higher than the other.  Plus, she walks with her front feet swinging out in front of each other, her left one does it more than her right one, if I'm remembering correctly.  And finally, her legs are very upright, so to try to get her to tuck her bum under is made a whole lot harder.  

The reason that she's here at my trainer's is that she's going to be one of the Show horses.  Remember the Show from last year?  Yeah, she's one of the horses that's going to be used this year.  My trainer also mentioned that she might be used as a lesson horse after the Show.  

So that's Candy Sue.  My trainer knew that she'd be an interesting horse for me to get under my belt, and learn how to handle, so I got to ride her.  

Honestly, I'm kinda surprised that I got the saddle positioned right the first time.  I put it as far forward as I could without placing it on her very distinct shoulder blades.  My trainer said if it'd been just 4 inches back it would have felt even weirder to sit on her.  

She was very, very slow to lead up into the indoor arena and up to the mounting block.  I assumed she'd be that way being ridden, but she wasn't.  James was having his lesson on Cordell at this time too.

My first impressions were that it felt weird, and that my reins needed to be longer than for other horses.  Her neck and head was stuck way out there.  But she moved off of my leg willingly.

After a lap around, my trainer asked me what I thought of her.  I said she felt weird, and my trainer told me about how she walked.  I don't think I've ever ridden a horse who's feet swing in front of one another, that was an interesting feeling.  

So my trainer told me to just going around the middle of the arena and make some turns and circles on her, to continue to get a feeling for what she's like.  

When you turned to the right (clockwise) you could really feel her outside shoulder drop down.  Like, not bulge out but just drop down and under.  Sometimes you could feel it more than others, depending on the turn / circle.  Honestly, I wondered if she would / had fallen from it, because it feels like you could just push her and she'd fall over on that side.  On either side I don't think she wanted to step to the inside very much.  

After I told my trainer these things, she told me to go ahead and trot her around, see what that felt like.  She went into trot quite willingly, it felt very bouncy, like she was throwing me up when I posted to it.  Sitting it would have been a nightmare, if not impossible.  

My trainer said that feeling I was getting from her was of a horse completely on the forehand and just rushing forward.  A little out of control, it was her way of trying to balance herself.  To ask her to slow down or collect herself a little wouldn't work very well.  

I should also mention that soon after the beginning of the ride, she started trying to root the reins from my hands.  I wondered if my reins were too short, but my trainer never said anything about that, so I kept my fingers closed and used my core to resist her.  Turns out rooting reins from peoples' hands is something she likes to do.  

Then my trainer had me go on the circle of poles in trot and began to work with me, telling me beforehand I was probably going to have to use my body more like a joystick than I was used to.

 On the side of the circle nearest the west side of the arena, she really wanted to drift out.  So, my trainer showed me a new way to counter that.  (This was going to the right, aka clockwise.)

She wanted me to step down into my inside stirrup and push / turn / it out towards the center of the circle where she was standing.  This peeled my inside thigh away from the saddle and invited Candy over the inside, thus stopping her from skidding out.  

This is actually something I've been wanting to learn more about, how to invite a horse to the inside with your leg.  I think it could really help Shorty, but I'm still trying to figure out how to do it / what the feel of it is.  

It really did work, Candy followed my leg to the inside and didn't drift so much.  

Going the other way we kinda had to do something that was the opposite.  Instead of drifting out, she'd try to drift in, in about the same place on the circle.  What I had to do was put my weight back on outside seat bone, like lean back a little and just, like, draw here to the outside.  It was an interesting feeling but it did work.  

Once things were going good, we came to walk and took a break.  When I halted in front of Trainer, who was sitting on the mounting block, she noted that I was getting better at halting with the bottom part of my back and seat.  

She said that was something else she'd learned more about, about how to halt / control speed with that area.  She'd been using her upper body more, which isn't nearly as effective.  But when she used her seat / lower body more for it, Rugar was like "I just can't run through the bit!" and she was like "Oh yeah you can't"  XD  

She also explained how stepping to the inside worked with Candy.  See, even though Candy is drifting to the outside, she's not doing it with her shoulders bulging out like they usually do.  She's dropping that outside shoulder but still falling to the outside.  

By stepping to the inside and inviting her over, it realigns her shoulders and thus keeps her from drifting.  Going the opposite direction, it's the opposite way, so we have to invite her over to the outside to realign her.  

Finally, she asked me if I wanted to feel what it was like to canter her.  I tentatively said I would.  

So, she told me to canter going to the left, because she basically doesn't / can't pick up the right lead right now.  Her canter was going to feel horrible, if I remember right she said I could go into two point if needed XD 

She also said that for the transition, I was basically going to just get her going faster and faster until she picked up the canter.  Normally, my trainer's horses know to never canter when the rider is posting the trot, so you have to sit to ask them for it.  But Candy has no idea about that, so I was going to have to post until she broke into trot.  

It was weird, but apparently we got a pretty nice transition from Candy by her standards.  Sure enough, the canter felt terrible.  We lost it the first lap because I had to veer off to avoid a horse in the corner, but we picked it up again about the same way.  Steering was a bit more of a problem than her horrible canter XD

That was pretty much my ride on her.  She's an interesting horse, and I honestly wouldn't mind riding her again the feature, despite how weird she feels.  

Actual lesson 5/3/2022