2023 & 2024 Riding Journey

#2 A Break on Riggs

My trainer said to me "Do you want to ride Mariah or Lily for your lesson?" 

Now, neither of those two options sound any better than the other one for me.  Both are tricky mares to ride.  Before I could make my choice, my trainer then said something like "No, that's not right.  It's been awhile since you've ridden Riggs, so we'll give you a break and let you ride her." 

Don't get me wrong, Mariah and Lily have both taught me a lot, including skills that I think will be invaluable when it comes to riding other horses.  But it is nice to have a break every once in awhile and ride a horse like Riggs. 

Despite the fact that I wasn't riding Mariah, my trainer still had me catch her, as well as Cordell for James to ride.  Vivie got to ride Romeo again.  It was later on that my trainer rode Mariah herself, but she didn't ride her during the lesson.

When I went to get the tack for Riggs, my mind switched to thinking that I was riding Mariah.  I started looking around for the inflatable pad and nearly grabbed her bridle, lol.  Thankfully I got out of there with all the correct tack that I needed.

We rode in the big outdoor for this lesson, the day was pretty nice.  When I came out to the outdoor, Vivie hadn't mounted yet but was in the process, and James was going to be next.  So my trainer told me I could go ahead and mount without the using the block.

I wasn't sure I was going to get my foot in that stirrup, but I managed somehow and lugged myself up there.  You sure do get used to a mounting block.  Riggs stood patiently by like the good girl she is.

My trainer didn't give me anything to do right away (this is becoming more typical, I guess, as I've grown in my riding and can start the warm up by myself).  I knew that Riggs could sometimes be a bit dull, beings that she is often ridden by little kids and doesn't have the go-go nature of Mariah.  So I started off by doing walk-halt transitions.

I think these would have worked better if I had been more concise and pointed about them.  But on the other hand, Riggs wasn't terribly sluggish in responding to my aids.  I would also throw in some back ups, just a step or two, and then go forward.

I did this going one lap clockwise, and then changed directions to counter-clockwise.  I was thinking that I probably needed to start in on trotting for the warm up, when my trainer told me to go into rising trot.  Then she gave me a new exercise to do. 

So, remember the exercise I did with Mariah where I was trying to get her to step over the poles on the circle with her outside foot first?  Well, my trainer wanted me to make a circle in each corner, but she wanted me to act as if I was asking Riggs to step over a pole with her outside leg first.  In other words, do the exercise but without the poles, placing Riggs in that same position on the circle.

To do this, she had me shorten the inside rein and ask with my inside leg, while turning my body even more to the inside.  This was a strange new thing to do, but my trainer was pleased with our first attempt, and after that left us to our own devices.

For the most part things went smoothly, but I wasn't quite sure when I was asking 'enough'.  Like, if she was bent enough, or her hindquarters moved over enough.

On one circle, my trainer said that I needed to ask more with my inside leg so her hindquarters moved over / crossed more.  So I asked and kept on asking, and my trainer was happy with the result.  Soon after that (that may have been our last circle going that direction, but I don't remember for sure) she had me come down to the walk and take a break.  She said that doing this work on a circle was harder on a horse, so we'd take a longer walk break before going back to work.

So, we walked around for a bit,  then did the same exercise going the other way.  This was going clock-wise, or to the right, around the arena. 

Going this direction was definitely easier with Riggs.  While she hadn't fought me hard going the other way, going this way it was almost too easy to get her to bend and move outward.  Seriously, at some points it felt like we were doing a weird leg yield and coming off the circle.  I didn't know if that was a good or bad thing.  But also, it was harder to keep her going, to make her keep up the trot.  Looking back now, I wonder if it was because she was bending so much that it slowed down her trot.

I mentioned this ease of bending to my trainer, and she said that meant Riggs probably traveled with her hindquarters a little more placed to one side than the other.  (I think she said to the left, but I'm not sure.)  Over time, you might do more of that exercise on one rein to help even things up.

She also mentioned that this exercise is good for helping a horse to learn to stay bent over a jump.  She herself is learning how to keep a horse bent, like literally bent, when going over a jump, so that a turn can be made afterwards.  This helps horses with that.

After another break, it was time for canter work.  My trainer wanted me to canter around the arena and make circles in each corner, but not doing the shoulder-in exercise on them.  Specifically, she wanted the circles to be round, and to end where the started.  She didn't want me to let Riggs spiral in a little and thus cut off part of the circle.  It's all too easy to let a horse do that.  She also said I had a lot of tools I could use to prevent this from happening, and the best one for a lesson horse, if Riggs would respond to it, was to push her over with my inside leg.  That makes things easier for little kids later on.

I'm sorry to say that I didn't pay as much attention to this as I should've on every circle, but I think we were fairly successful.

My main focus was on sitting Rigg's canter.  She doesn't have a bad canter, in fact, it's pretty steady.  A typical QH horse canter, I guess.  But I'm still working on learning the feel of sitting the canter and not just jouncing around up there.

One thing I've read about in Sylvia Loch's books about sitting the canter is to lead slightly with your inside leg.  That is, you let your inside leg be slightly forward to complement the horse's movement on that lead.  I tried this whenever I thought about it and I'm not completely sure, but I think it helped me to not bounce.  It put me more in tune with the movement.

Going to the right, I was making our last circle.  It went around two boards, and I think the boards may have come up looking odd in Rigg's eye as we went around them.  Whatever the reason, she spooked to the side and broke from the canter.  I tried to get the canter back, and I did, but it was on the wrong lead.  So I brought her down to walk like I'd been planning to do after we completed the circle.  Maybe I should have tried again for the right lead, but I chose not to, and looking back I don't think it was as bad of a decision as I thought it might be.  She did pick up the canter after the spook when I asked, even if it was the wrong lead, and I think that's what matters more.

After canter work, the lesson was pretty much finished for me.  But my trainer told me that while the others were finishing up their lesson, I could fiddle around with getting Riggs to flex at the poll if I wanted.  My trainer watched me ask for it once, told me to put a little more pressure on one rein (the right one?), and after she saw Riggs gave to me, she left us to own devices.

Throughout the ride, I'd been sensing that if I wanted to ask for flexion, it wouldn't take much at all to get it from Riggs.  And sure enough, I was right.  (One tip my trainer gave me was that if I put pressure on the reins and Riggs started to go sideways one way or the other, it might be that I had more pressure one rein than the other.)

I felt her back come up under me and it was so wonderful, I let her stretch out some. I do think I could've encouraged her to take a stronger contact with the rein, but other than that, it was good.  It was definitely a good thing to end the ride on.

Vivie looks so cute together with Romeo, and James is doing so much cantering now.  I really enjoy having them as my lesson mates for as long as I have.

Actual lesson 1/17/2023