2023 & 2024 Riding Journey

#36 Nova Again

I got to ride Nova again.  My trainer said she liked the way things had gone last time and also that I was doing her ride on Nova for her, so that's a nice compliment.  I like Nova pretty well, she's a nice horse.  Vivie, Friend, and James were all there for the lesson.  Vivie rode Rugar, James Cordell, and Friend Mariah.  We were in the indoor arena, which was nice because of a biting north wind that was blowing.

I was actually the first one to mount.  She didn't try to move off from the mounting block right away, so she's learning not to do that.  I walked her around on semi loose rein for quite awhile.  Her walk was not jiggy and I didn't have to do anything about it, so we've made progress on that regard.  My trainer wanted me to work on making sure her nose was pointed to the inside, where it should be, and that she was going into the corners nicely.  She said I needed to leg yield her into the corners until she was doing better at them / setting herself up better.

I confess I didn't do the best job at this that I could've.  One of my struggles was that crookedness again going clockwise around the arena.  Once you get crooked, it can be hard to figure out how to get straight again.  Some of it might've been Nova, but I think part of it was also me.

Still, things went decently, and my trainer told me to start doing walk / trot transitions like we did last week.  When I picked up the rising trot, she told me it needed more energy if it was going to be a rising trot, so I asked for it and got it.  We were having some trouble with the corners going to the right, so my trainer told me I could change directions if it was too much think about at the moment.  So that's what I did.

She then told me to not start posting, but rather sit the nice, slower trot Nova was offering.  See, this is the trot that the little kids need to be able to ride.  So, when I asked her to trot, I was to stay sitting and then let her ease herself down into the walk if possible.

I started sitting that trot, and man it was nice.  It was just what a sitting trot ought to be.  I was able to easily follow it with my seat and I felt like a one of those upper level classical dressage masters on one of their well trained and collected horses.  It was also easy to bring her down to the walk using mostly my seat a lot of the time.

After we'd done that for a bit, my trainer told me to throw in asking her for a rising trot as well.  I was to go from sitting like a lump on a log when I asked for trot one time, to actively asking for a rising trot the next time, to then asking for sitting trot, and so on.  This would help Nova in the lesson program with the little kids.

My trainer said that people will say about a horse "They know when they have a kid on their back" and she said of course they do.  Unless a kid is like, winning the pony jumpers or something else like that, they sit like a sack of potatoes.  They don't 'actively' ride, especially if they're beginners.  Versus when an adult gets on, who 'actively' rides and has the coordination / strength to, they can tell a difference.  So a horse can learn to take care of a kid and then also know when someone else is on their back and adjust accordingly, because they can feel the difference.  This was a way of teaching that difference to Nova.

These transitions went pretty good and smoothly.  I was able to get sitting trot when I wanted and rising trot when I wanted.  My trainer said I could take a break before going on to do trot canter transitions, or go straight into the transitions.  I decided to take a break for both our sakes before we attempted that.

So we took a halted break, during which my trainer explained to Friend how she wanted her to use the reins.  She wanted Friend to trot around on a long rein, and she could use the reins, but she was not to use them to 'micro manage'.  That's the temptation with reins, but you've got to trust that your body also is enough to steer and guide the horse, and not depend just on your hands.

After that, it was time to tackle the transitions.  I don't do trot canter transitions very often, so this was newer to me.

The first transition, Nova took a little while to get into the canter and kinda tossed her head up and down in a bit of a fit before picking up the canter.  But as we did more transitions, she became more prompt about picking up the canter, and that head tossing went away.

We came down to walk and my trainer said Nova had curled / bunched up.  She had me pick my hands up and 'bump' her in the mouth to get her to uncurl, while using my inside leg to stop her from bowing out to the inside. 

We changed directions, then started doing the transitions again.  We didn't do very many this direction, if I remember right, because Nova did something really nice in transitioning down to trot (I think she didn't get bunched up but I can't remember for sure?) and my trainer had us come down to walk.  

I can't remember if it was when I came down to walk this time, or another time, but one time when we did, she told me to feed that rein out and push Nova onward with my leg.  She said we were trying to communicate to her that there was no room 'behind' for her to curl up into.  That meant I would have to use my leg to push her out and forward, which might mean, in some cases, a transition, but in this case it didn't.

I walked around for awhile after that on a long rein.  This was when I finally was able to stop being crooked to some degree and keep her next to the fence without a struggle going to the right.  Part of my problem is that I'm not weighting my right seat bone enough.  The other is that I think what I need to do to correct it feels like the opposite of what I need to do to keep her next the fence.  It feels like if I correct it, it will make her come even more to the inside.  I know that's not true, but to fight that feeling is very hard.  

My trainer thought we were at a good place and asked me if I wanted to end it there, or if I felt like there was needed / wanted to do something more.  I said we were good, so I halted in the middle of of the arena and let my feet out of the stirrups while watching / waiting for the others to finish up.  I played around with shifting my weight and maybe fixing my posture.  Letting your feet out the stirrups and draping them around the horse can help me figure things out, I think.  And then I dismounted and the lesson was over.  Overall, it was pretty good and I think my trainer was happy with it!  

Actual lesson 11/21/2023