2023 & 2024 Riding Journey

#11 Sweet Potato Again

Yes, I'm going to be riding Amara a lot, and no, I don't mind. 

This time, there was only Vivie and James for the lesson.  Vivie was on Mariah, and James was on Cordell.  You know who it is that I was riding.  We rode in the indoor arena, but before that, we did some groundwork.

Normally, I work during the hour that Vivie, James, and whoever else does groundwork with my trainer.  But today my trainer had me groom off and work Amara along with the others, which was really nice, and I think it made a difference in the ride later.

I figured out in the groundwork session that Amara tends to be really unsure.  She's always asking 'are you sure you want me to do this?' which lends itself to that sudden halting thing she does.  However, you can't just strike out at her for it, and be like, 'quit that', or she freaks out.  Instead, I had to not do that, but at the same time be firm and sure in my own requests.  Her reactiveness could make me handle her like a fragile piece of glass, which only makes her more unsure.  I needed to not be afraid to say, firmly, 'yes, this is what I want.' 

My trainer wanted me to watch her and think about how it would feel for me to ride a movement if I was on her back.  If she gave me a movement that I thought would be nice to ride, that'd be a good time to reward her.  Groundwork is all about preparation for riding.  Thus, I wanted to try to get that halting, reluctant-to-go-forward quirk out of her if I could.

I started off with circles, then did some crossing of the hindlegs, then some changes of direction.  After that, she was going around me in a fairly nice rhythm around the circle. Normally, my trainer said, this was a horse where she wouldn't let her go one circle without making her do something.  But, if she was maintaining a good pace and making a nice circle, that was fine.

She asked me a question about her, if I'd noticed something (I can't remember the exact question).  I told her that I noticed she would like to come in with her inside shoulder towards me.  My trainer agreed, and told me it was because her hindquarters were out-running her front end that she was doing that, if I remember right.  My solution to correct this had been to push her forward and away from me, which my trainer said was what I needed to do. 

After that, we went to doing some walk trot transitions.  My trainer wanted to see them get smooth, and for her to maintain her own pace on the circle.  Then she told me after that we'd work on having her go over a pole.

We worked for awhile on the transitions.  The transitions were good, but I don't feel she was maintaining a steady enough pace.  I probably should've worked on that more.  Her main thing was that she would slow or come to the walk when passing by a pole from one of the circle of poles.  I wonder if I was having her go too close to that pole and making her wonder if she was to step over it or not.  If so, that was my fault.

The ravens are trying to build a nest up in my trainer's arena, but the place they've chosen is not big enough for them.  Thus, the sticks (and they are pretty good sized sticks) have fallen down in a pile at the edge of the arena.  My trainer doesn't mind that they're building, in fact I almost feel she's encouraging it!  

Anyhow, after that, it was time to do some work with a pole. Now, I've done the exercise where you try to get a horse to step over the pole with it's outside or inside foot first while riding.  But, I've never attempted it on the ground.  

My trainer demonstrated it using Rugar, whom she was ground-working as well.  It was just by using a single pole instead of the whole circle.  My trainer stood a little ways from the end of the pole and would let the horse go around in a circle over the pole.  She told me I was to do some 'fact finding' circles to see whether Amara preferred stepping over the pole with her inside or outside leg.  If it was the outside, we'd work on getting her step over the pole with the inside, and vice versa if it was the inside.  Now, if Amara showed no marked preference, that wasn't really good, but it wasn't really bad either, it just meant she had no preferred bend and was fairly straight up and down in her body.