2023 & 2024 Riding Journey

#7 Simple Lily Lesson

I had to miss last week's lesson, everyone else was either sick or on vacation according to my trainer, so she just decided to go into town and told me we'd ride extra next time. 

Today, there were four other people in the lesson with me.  There was Vivie on Mariah, James on Riggs, Friend on Romeo, and a women I don't think I've met before.  I'll call her Kay.  (Not her real name.)  She rode Cordell.  And me?  I got to ride Lily.  

Apparently Lily has been doing a lot of work with my trainer recently, but not so much in the lesson program.  Since I haven't ridden her in awhile, my trainer put me on her.

I'm grateful that my trainer had mercy on me and let me remember what it's like to ride her.  My guess is I'll be riding her for the next few lessons.  

We all rode in the indoor arena, which was pretty crowded with five people in there, and my trainer also with Twister, whom she was ground-working.  Fortunately, there were no too close crashes or accidents, but you did have to be watching.

I was the last one to mount.  Whoever rode in that saddle last must have had legs a lot longer than mine.  I shortened up the stirrups three holes and they were still kinda long (dressage length, I think) when I mounted. 

Now, Lily has a weird, bouncy walk.  It makes it feel like she's really tense and tight, even though she's not terribly so.  It also feels to me like she'll 'hitch' in her walk.  Basically for the first part of the ride I walked around trying to relax into the saddle and doing some halts to see how she was about that.

She was alright with the halts.  I was careful that she didn't go forward without my permission, and she did try it several times.  

My trainer told me to stop bracing against the stirrup so much and to bend my knee so I could sink more into the saddle.  The temptation is to try to hold yourself above her bouncy walk by bracing, but that does not help things at all.

After a little while, my trainer told me I could go to the trot, as the walk was already looking better to her.  But I wasn't supposed to go to the trot as a way to avoid the walk.  I had to make sure it we were settled in the walk before we went into trot.  

So I took a little while longer, and then was ready to try my hand at trotting.  I knew in advance that it was going to be fast, but I'd forgotten just how it felt.  As my trainer told me several times during this lesson, Lily is 'a lot of horse'.  Her trot is just naturally fast and quick, but it almost seems like there's a long moment of suspension, too?  I don't know, but I did know that I had to be ready for it.

The first time I tried trotting, I felt like I was just banging up and down on her back.  I thought part of the reason I was having trouble was my stirrup length.  So I brought her to walk and halted her, then shortened my stirrups another two or three holes.  That helped, but it also made it easier to brace against the stirrup, so I had to be careful of that.

After that, we trotted around several laps.  It did feel a little wild, but I was able to post better.  My trainer called her trot several times 'fancy' and seemed happy with how things were going.

I think we took a break in the middle of the arena before trotting the other way.  My trainer would have two or three people on the rail and the rest would be in the center of the arena.  Then she'd have the others on the rail come in the center to take a break and send out the others to do something on the rail.  That way things didn't get too crazy and people actually had room to do things. 

The next set of trotting went well, about the same as the second set before had.  Just whizzed around the arena doing my best to keep up and not bang on her back, with my trainer telling me to put my heels down and keep my leg back to help myself.  Again, she said that Lily's trot was 'fancy'. 

I think we took another break, and then my trainer told me to go canter her.  

When I first asked for the canter, I got the wrong lead and Lily squirted away.  My trainer said I was asking with too strong of an aid, that I didn't need an aid that strong with Lily.  The next time was better.  

My trainer had told me that it was okay to sit up and ask Lily to slow down, but if I did, I would have to be firm about it.  I also used some circles to help keep things slower.  So, the first round of cantering didn't go too bad.  

When we came down to walk, I was mostly able to keep her there.  Throughout all of this, I'd been fighting to stay relaxed.  Getting tense on Lily only makes things worse.  My trainer told me she'd had to say very little to me because she could see that I was talking myself through it, so she let me alone.  

My trainer gave me the option to call it a day after that cantering round, or go another round going the other direction around the arena (aka counter-clockwise).  I chose to go another round.

This round wasn't as good, but that's alright.  I had to remember that I could slow her down, and to sit up and do so.  Also, in the northeast corner the pigeons were flapping about and doing something, and it spooked Lily at least twice during the lesson.  She would speed through that corner.  

If and when I went to slow her down, I had to really sit down and haul on those reins.  She will slow down, but you have to put your foot down about it.  Trainer says she feels like a horse that is running away, but she's not actually running away.  So I had to work on keeping her slow in the canter and not just let her motor bike around the arena. 

When we came down to the walk, she kept lurching up into that little mini trot she likes to do.  I refused to hang on the reins and kept bringing her back to walk, then releasing to her.  But my trainer then told me several times as she did this to back her up.  If she trotted, she got to back up.

I also had to work on being not tense while doing this.  It took more than five times of backing her up, but I relaxed a little more and she quit trying to trot.  We ended the lesson there.  

My trainer said that Lily can dither with you all day about whether you're getting her to walk or not, but if you start backing her up, then after a little while she'll be like, 'this is too much work' and quit it.  

So, that was the lesson.  Real simple, but I needed it to be simple to get used to Lily again.  

Also, my trainer was talking with Vivie and James after the groundwork session they had before the lesson.  She was explaining when you need to be gentle with your aids and when you need to get onto a horse.

She said it's pretty much always better if you use too much of an aid.  Then, at least, even if the horse over-reacts, they responded and you can make a note to self that was too much.  Also, you likely startled yourself by getting onto them, and thus gave them a release, which makes it clear to them that some kind of action was required of them. 

Versus, if you just keep using the same little aid, and the horse doesn't respond, they just get dull to it.  For example, if you keep using your leg aid like that, and you dull a horse to it, then you could use the riding crop.  But if you dull them to that, well, what option do you have left?  If you dull a horse too much, well, what it takes to bring them out of that can be pretty brutal.  As my trainer said Buck Brannamen says "it starts to get medieval."

So it's better to use a little too much, then to constantly be doing too little and thus dulling your horse.  It's not fun to get onto a horse, but it's far less kind to them to dull them that way.  Then they just don't respond at all, and then you have to use so much force than would've been necessary to  get a response out of them later on.  It's not fair to them, it's literally killing them with kindness.  It's pretty difficult to bring them out of that, with either force or kindness in the end.  

So, that was interesting to listen in on, and a very good point to be made.  And yeah, that's it for this entry.  

Actual lesson 3/21/2023