2023 & 2024 Riding Journey

#22 Back on Rugar

So, I got to choose between Mariah and Rugar for this lesson.  I asked my trainer what we would be doing with each of them, and she said whatever needed to be done.  Then she added that we'd probably be jumping with either of them.  So in the end I picked Rugar.

James, Vivie, and Kiley were there for the lesson.  James was on a new horse, named Shiloh.  It was his first time riding the gelding.  Vivie was on Cordell and Kiley on Riggs again.  We rode in the indoor, so we had to be aware of each other.

Though I shortened my stirrups before mounting, they were still dressage length when I mounted Rugar.  I'd also forgotten how much bigger he feels compared to, say, Mariah.  I should've shortened my stirrups right then and there, but I didn't.

My trainer had me and Kiley do the face the wall, then turn back to the track, exercise.  I haven't done this one in awhile.  It's where you turn the horse's face to the arena fence, and use your leg to get them to cross their hindlegs so they end up facing the arena fence.  It's sort of like a half way one rein stop.  Then you ask them to step to the side with their front feet so that they're alongside the fence again.  For me, moving the hind feet isn't the hard part, it's moving the front feet that is.

But Rugar did very well at this.  It was so wonderful to feel, especially when I'd ask him to move his front feet and he would just turn on a dime, keeping his hind feet in virtually the same place. 

After some time of this, my trainer asked me what I thought could be done to improve it so that the exercise was smoother.  I said that I could stop being quite so slow and precise about doing it as I had been.  She said that might be one thing, but that also Rugar's walk wasn't fast enough to produce a smoother movement.

I'd felt that Rugar was somewhat lethargic, but hadn't done much about it.  After that I got a faster walk, but we didn't do much more of this exercise before my trainer told me I could pick up a rising trot and warm him up in any way I thought would help him best.  

Well, I wasn't exactly sure what would help, but I did know that I would like him to be a little more alert to my leg aids. Plus, some turning would probably be good.  So I decided on rising trot with sitting trot circles in the corners.  

This went fairly well, except for the fact my stirrups were really too long for rising trot.  My posting was the best and kinda weak, uncontrolled.  This was partly due to the long stirrups and partly due to Rugar's bouncy trot which I'm not used to.  Now, the sitting trot would go pretty well, but rising trot was torture.

My trainer was telling me about my posting, and what I needed to change about it, so I came to walk to pay attention better.  She was pleased that he came to walk nicely when I stopped posting.

I came over to her and she said that I needed to use my quads more.  I needed to use them to control my rising and my sitting, so that motion I was making more with my upper leg was like a wind shield wiper.  She understood that Rugar's trot wasn't what I was used to, most of the horses she owns aren't as big as him.  Shorty never had a trot stride like Rugar's and never will, so I don't have a lot of experience with it.  With Mariah, she said the type of loose posting I'd been doing had worked, but it couldn't work with Rugar.  I needed to have more control.

After she explained to me what I needed to change, I took the opportunity to shorten my stirrups because I knew that if I didn't, what she was asking for would be very hard, though she hadn't said anything about my stirrups being too long.  Shortening stirrups from the saddle is an utter pain, but I got it done and it was so much better.  I resumed trotting and my exercise going the other direction, clockwise, around the arena.

I had to really use my upper leg to gain control of my posting.  It still felt a little like I was being thrown up out of the saddle, but it was better and my trainer told me later that it looked better.  Sitting trot was more challenging, but my trainer never called out to me about it, so onward we went.  Overall, things just went a lot better.

Afterwards we took a long, standing break by the mounting block while my trainer worked with the others.  Then she told me to go have some canter on a circle in the bottom half of the arena.  (By bottom half she means the half of the arena that's not under the arena roof and where the circle of poles isn't located.)

I think this is the first time that I've asked Rugar for canter just for the sake of cantering.  Like, before it's been all about jumping, so I've never really had the chance to sit to his canter.  It's a pretty nice canter, his stride is huge but it's smooth enough that it's pretty easy to sit.

My trainer told me to shorten my reins just as I asked for canter from Rugar, so that was a little haphazard of a transition.  But once we were in canter, things went pretty smoothly.  My trainer had told me I could put my weight to the outside if I felt him trying something, but I can't remember if that something was him slipping to the outside or the inside?  

Anyhow, my trainer told me our circle was kinda smearing to the outside and to try to keep him as straight up and down as possible.  It's such a different feeling from what I thought a circle should feel like, but at the same time it feels more controlled when they're like they're supposed to be and less like a crazy merry go round.

So I worked on not smearing the circle to the outside, by trying to sit up more and block with my outside rein / leg, and things went better.  My trainer told me I could keep cantering as long as I wanted.

I kept going until our circle was better, aka we were both straighter, and then brought him to walk.  I walked him for a bit until my trainer called me over to the middle where Vivie and Kiley were.  She said that those in the middle could dismount, but I didn't know if that included me, so I stayed on.

As I came over, my trainer said that we hadn't done any jumping but I told her I didn't mind.  So I sat there for awhile, and then dismounted.

Actual lesson 8/8/2023