2023 & 2024 Riding Journey

#25 Good Groundwork with Mariah

So, for this lesson, I didn't get to ride but just did groundwork with James and Friend.  Unfortunately, Riggs had been apparently been kicked in her right hind leg, and so she was out of commission for a bit.  My trainer didn't seem to think it was serious, it didn't appear that any bone had been fractured or something like that, because Riggs didn't try to kick when she felt it.  

Therefore, I think Riggs will be alright but it left my trainer short one lesson horse.  So, instead of me riding, I was given Mariah to do groundwork with.  I'm not mad at my trainer about this, just so you know, I understand the situation.  

Anyhow, I groomed off Mariah and then joined Friend in the outdoor arena.  She had Rugar to do groundwork with.  James came for groundwork as well, and he had Cordell for that.  Friend was told she could head out to the outdoor arena and that my trainer would be out there shortly.  So, I assumed that when I was done grooming Mariah I could head out there too, and so I did.

Mariah was good in the fact that she was calm, not grouchy, etc.  but she was not good about the fact that she was trying to snatch at weeds to eat them.  I got onto her about that and afterwards she restrained herself for the most part.  I yielded her hindquarters, had her do changes of direction, and would also sometimes turn and walk way to see how she'd follow me.  All of that went smoothly and good as far as I could tell.

My trainer came out with James then, and she started engaging with James and Friend first.  Since she didn't give me anything else to do right away, and since there was nothing else for Mariah and I to do at the walk, I decided to do some trotting.

I did walk - trot transitions going both directions with Mariah.  The main thing I focused on was her picking up the trot promptly.  She would tend to lag a little when I picked up the rope, so I got onto her about that and that got better.  Also, she was slow about coming down to walk, I wonder if I wasn't asking clearly or firmly enough.  Otherwise, she had a pretty lovely trot and was fairly relaxed about it.  

It was after that my trainer spoke to me.  I think she asked how Mariah was doing, and I said good.  She may have also said something about her trot being lovely, I'm not sure if I'm remembering that correctly though.  Then she told me to bring her over to the telephone poles and railroad ties and trot her over them like I've done in the past.  The goal was that she would be straight, wouldn't lean on the rope, and would keep a nice trot.  If I needed to, I could either hustle her, to force her into rebalancing herself, or I could make her yield her hindquarters and give to the rope before starting again.  If that went well, we wouldn't do it very long, and would move onto doing some work on leading.

My trainer also said just before we started, that she'd let Mariah go over one jump in walk, and then ask her to trot.  So that's what I did, and I think this where the work I did with transitions beforehand paid off.

Overall, things were quite lovely.   Mariah would sometimes lean on the rope, or take a jump in an unbalanced way, but she was correcting herself often enough, I felt no great need to correct her myself.  Overall, it was much better than it used to be.  She's figured out how to hold herself up / correct herself, which was the goal.

When I mentioned this to my trainer, she said that was fine.  In fact, we wouldn't expect, at least right now, for Mariah not to stumble or loose her balance sometimes, we're not looking for her to keep it 100% of the time.  If and when she got to the point where she pretty much kept her balance all the time, well, as my trainer said, she'd be too expensive to keep around lol.  Meaning that my trainer sells her horses when they get to be that good.

After that, my trainer had us go over to the tire jump and told me to take her over that one.  I was just going to walk her over it first, if I remember right.  But there just happened to be a nice, big weed sticking up in front of it and Mariah seized on the opportunity to stop right in front of the jump and bite the head off of that weed.

My trainer wasn't too mad, she told me to urge her onward.  So she went over the jump and then into trot with a slightly mad look on her face and the weed still in her mouth.  My trainer actually told me in the beginning to relax, that I was being too intense.  (I think that was partly because Mariah's weed snatching flustered me somewhat.)  

The other thing my trainer said, after Mariah had jumped it two or three times around, was that I needed to step forward when she jumped it to make sure I wasn't yanking on her face as she landed.  Mariah was starting to worry about that.  Once we fixed that, things went smoother, and after two or three more jumps my trainer had me bring her to walk and then walk her way from the jump as a reward.  Overall, she was fairly straight and not crooked.

Mariah did end up having a slight choke on the weed seeds, I believe, but she coughed it out herself and was fine.  After walking away from the jump, I stopped to let her hack it out.  My trainer explained to James that choking in horses is not the same as with humans.  When they choke, it's their esophagus that gets plugged, not their windpipe most of the time.  You still have to go to the vet for it sometimes though.  Also, she said that most of the time horses don't choke on hay.  The only times she's heard of a horse choking on hay was when the horse had already had a choking episode with something else.  When a horse chokes once, they unfortunately can have a tendency to do it again.  My trainer also said that it tends to happen with other types of feed or grain, and that she likes the feed she uses because it breaks up and crumbles really easily when it gets wet, so the horse's saliva is generally enough to break it up.      

Anyhow, after that, we took a halted break while Friend and James did some stuff.  Then my trainer asked me what I thought of how Mariah was, and I said she was good.  My trainer thought so too, and since it was now time for the others' lesson, I was to take her back to the hitching rail.

But when I lead her, she was supposed to stay alongside me, not lag behind, and keep me between her head and shoulder, along her neck area.  I might have to use the lead rope and swing it around behind to make her keep up with me.  If she skittered ahead at that, I was to just pause, set things up as they were before, and go on. 

When I started out, my trainer told me to ask Mariah to speed up without speeding up my own stride.  I made the mistake of speeding up when she did twice.  It's really easy to do.  I had to watch my own step as much as Mariah's when I asked her to keep alongside me.  My trainer said that at a clinic she's gone to, they can spend an hour working on just that in the introductory class to groundwork.

After that, however, things went smoothly.  I took her back to the hitching rail and tied her up.  And that was it for the lesson.  

Actual lesson 8/29/2023