2023 & 2024 Riding Journey

#32 Trotting Cordell

So this lesson I was again on Cordell, but this time it was just Vivie and me for the lesson, and we rode in the indoor arena, as my trainer had a horse in a pen nearby that she was keeping an eye on.  (The horse turned out to be fine.)  Vivie rode Mariah.

I had adjusted my stirrups before mounting, and I thought I'd adjusted them to the same holes that I usually did.  But they felt quite short, and when I checked them, I discovered I'd gone too far when adjusting them.  So I put them back on the right holes and sure enough, things felt a lot better.

I walked around for a bit and started experimenting with getting Cordell to flex at the poll.  He was real soft and responsive to it.  My trainer told me I needed to lift my hands a little higher and put them closer together so he didn't end up flexing behind the vertical.  On Mariah, it might be better to have my hands down lower, but with Cordell they needed to be higher.  I am used to having my hands down lower, so my trainer reminded me of this several times throughout the ride.

My trainer also said something to Vivie that was interesting for me to hear.  She said that a clinician she has trained with will have you wrap your shins around a horse when coming towards a jump.  In this way, if you get left behind or whatever, the propelling motion of the horse's ribcage will still carry you over the jump.  That was interesting to hear, and something I'll keep in mind.

My trainer had me do some circles at the walk and pay attention to if his walk changed when on the circle.  Did it get more like a normal horse's walk? Did it stay the same?  Or did it slow down?  For the most part, it stayed the same unless I changed something.  I just did the circle in each corner exercise for this.

After that, she had me pick up a running walk and do the same exercise.  What she really focused on with me was two things: one was that when Cordell was going through the corners, he was pushing his shoulder in and turning his head out.  I had felt this, but hadn't done anything to correct it when I should've.  So she told me to make sure when we coming to a corner to set him up like he should be to bend through it.

The other thing was getting enough bend on the circles and maintaining it.  She had me ask him for more bend with my inside leg and rein.  With my inside rein, I was moving it to where I was using it as a indirect rein, that is, pulling it up and over towards his outside ear.  But she told me I needed to use direct rein on him, and at one point to shorten the inside rein to get the bend needed.  Indirect rein was good for Mariah, but not for Cordell.

The thing I tended to do on the circles in these corner was I would steer through the circle for about three quarters of it, and then when we came back to the fence I would tend to just 'drop' the aids in a way and let the fence finish up the rest of the circle for me.  Thus, I was not maintaining the bend throughout the circle like I should've.  This is a habit that I haven't had very long (I don't think) but have slipped into, and I need to stop it.  You cannot depend on the fence as an aid except in certain cases where it is helpful or useful.  

I think we did two rounds of gaiting with a break in between.  After that, it was time to attempt something that I haven't really done on Cordell. Trotting.

Cordell is gaited, so his running walk tends to take the place of trot on him.  If you're going to the canter, you ask him to do it from the running walk (which by now, he's good at).  But he can, in fact, trot.  It's an ugly trot, but he can do it.  It's just that he hasn't been asked to do it very often.  I haven't asked it from him but maybe once. 

Well, my trainer wanted us to try to get the trot and maintain it on him.  She told me that I was going to have to let him have more rein in order to get to the trot, as for him to trot meant he had to move his center of gravity forward.  Thus, I would also have to tip myself forward in my seat slightly to help him with that as well.  

I didn't know what a trot would feel like on him, so that was an additional challenge.  We picked up the running walk, and then fumbled around with finding the trot.  When I did get it, my trainer was like "You've got it, start posting!"  And I started posting to a trot that felt like trot, but also didn't.  It was very fast, and just... odd feeling.  I could post to it, and even change my diagonal when needed, but it was just weird.  

The next challenge after that was maintaining that trot.  He wanted to drop down out of it, and we did loose it two or three times before getting it back again.  Eventually my trainer told me to come in from the arena fence.  I thought she just meant to come in off the fence, I didn't realize she was wanting me to make a large circle in the middle of the arena, so she told me a lot to 'keep turning!'  

Anyhow, after that, we came to walk and Cordell actually had a very nice transition to walk.  He held himself up and didn't lean on the rein.

My trainer said she'd had us come in off the fence because it was making those corners that was hindering Cordell in keeping up the trot, because he had to compress himself to go through them.    

We took another break, and then it was time to try again going the other direction.  My trainer said that if his trot started to loose the two beat rhythm, if he felt like he was compressing himself, I was to squeeze when I sat.  If he was getting stumbly, I was to just push him onward with a steady squeeze.  It could be hard to know which tool to employ, she said.

This round went better, though not at first.  We were doing a fast running walk and he would pick up the canter instead of the trot, and he was high-headed, when my trainer told me I could ask him to soften in the neck.  So I did that, and he stretched out, and then I pushed him on to ask for the trot.  That really helped, and it wasn't too long after that that we got the trot.

We were much more consistent in keeping it, because this time when he got it I came off the fence and onto a large circle in the middle of the arena.  This helped him stay in balance enough to keep it, and from then on all I needed was to keep posting and push him onward when he started to slow.

We went around doing circles for a good while, and then my trainer had us come to walk.  Once again, Cordell held himself up very nicely in the transition, even better than he had the previous transition, and it was lovely.  

After that we walked out a bit and then stood while my trainer talked with me and Vivie.  She told me that if we were going to be doing any sort of grid or bounce jump with Cordell, he would need to come in at a trot, because that shuffling running walk just wasn't going to work.   His transition from running walk to canter over a jump would mess with the distance too much, it would be impossible to set him a distance and then tell him to work with it because of it.  She also made the point that running walk, though faster, is still walking, and that for him to go from running walk to canter was basically a walk to canter transition.

So yeah, there were some interesting things learned at this lesson, and overall it was a good one.  I wonder if my trainer will have us working on the same things again next lesson.  It's been good to ride Cordell three weeks in a row like this.  

Actual lesson 10/17/2023