2023 & 2024 Riding Journey

#15 Trying Out Haunches - In

Once again, I got to both ground work and ride Mariah.  Partly because it was the dry place to work.

We'd gotten a lot of rain recently, and the water had pooled in a puddle at the hitching post.  When I saw the mud absolutely caking Mariah's hooves, I knew there was no point in trying to avoid it.  I just got my hands muddy and lived with it.

Anyhow, after finishing grooming her off, I led her to the outdoor and started seeing how grumpy she was / getting her to yield her hindquarters as a warm up.  She onnly mildly put her ears back and not for very long, so she did good.  Fairly relaxed, etc.

My trainer came out with a client horse and told me that when I was ready, I could start taking her over the telephone poles like last time.  She said we were going to do that exercise, and then at the end we were going to do some things to work on her leading.  Mariah is better about leading since she came here, but she's still not where my trainer would like her to be.

When it came to the stepping over the poles exercise, my trainer wanted me to only let her go four or five circles without her straightening herself up before 'hustling' her.  If she didn't start being straight on her own, by making her go faster, especially right before the poles, it'd be harder for her to go over them.  We want to  make her being crooked harder for her, and being straight easier, and one way to do that is to make her go faster.  If she goes faster and meets the pole before she planned to, then if she's not straight it'll be harder for her.

I felt like I'd covered all the bases with Mariah, so I led her over to start the pole exercise.  She was so much better than she was last time about it.  It didn't take her long for her to straighten herself up and step over the pole with  her inside foot first.  So I didn't do very much of that before asking my trainer if she wanted me to do the exercise in trot as well. 

Mariah was just about as good in trot as she was in walk.  I rewarded her multiple times and honestly, it was fairly easy for both of us.

Then it was time to take it up into canter, and this time my trainer didn't give me the flag.  She wanted me to use my arm and flap it against my side.  Which honestly did not seem like enough to me to make her canter.  She also told me not to chase her around the circle with my feet, and that the best time to ask her for canter was right before the rail road ties or telephone poles, so that she'd land in canter after going over them.

It didn't go well in the beginning.  Mariah went faster in trot, but she wouldn't pick up the canter.  I didn't have enough vigor, I don't think, and I didn't feel like I had anything to back my words up with, so I would be chasing her with my feet.  

My trainer took her from me and got after her.  Mariah was puffing a bit afterwards, so she had me walk her around for a bit before coming back to the exercise.

Again, it didn't go so well for me, it was more like I had Mariah on a really fast treadmill than me asking her to canter.  I still had that feeling that I had nothing to back up my words with, and so how could I convince her that I was serious about having her canter?  

Two things helped with this.  At one point, when I was sending her out to try again, she was being a little slow about it.  My trainer had me pick up the tail end of that lead rope and smack her good with it while she was close.  That told her I was serious about making her move forward, and she rushed off into canter.  

The second thing that helped was that my trainer had me pick up a dirt clod or two to throw at her.  Not big ones, but something that would make a point when I threw it at her hind end.  It turns out that a well aimed dirt clod is good at making a horse take you seriously.  

When it came time to bring her to walk as a reward for when she did well, my trainer told me I needed to be more assertive and really say 'hey, I told you to whoa'.  Also, she'd started a habit of coming in towards me when I told her to whoa, and my trainer had me back her up.