2023 & 2024 Riding Journey

#2 First Jumps of the Year on Rugar

Well, my lesson was rescheduled for Wednesday, instead of Tuesday, because on Tuesday the cold was too severe. Wednesday was still cold and kinda windy, but better than Tuesday.

James and Vivie were also there, and another woman who've I've ridden with before.  I don't remember what fake name I made up for her, so I guess I'll call her Kiley.  Anyhow, James rode Nova, Vivie rode Mariah, Kiley rode Cordell, and I rode Rugar.

My trainer told me that out of the lesson horses, Rugar had the most time off, so we would expect him to be the freshest of the bunch.  If he wanted to just spring into trot and all that, we'd let him and then put him to work doing something that was harder for him.  Eventually he'd get tired and think about slowing down.  Of course, with horses that are fitter than him, getting them tired is nearly impossible, but hey, you do different things for different horses.

But surprisingly enough, when I mounted up, Rugar was really chill.  His walk was pretty slow, and I didn't try to hurry it.  We did some circles and moseyed around.  He was really willing also to come on the bit and connect with me, which was also nice.

My trainer said it looked good and that she liked how my hands were wide and low at the walk.  She wanted me to pick up the trot, but only shorten my reins a little, and keep my hands the same.  But to be ready to shorten them quickly in the event that I got a nasty rushing trot from him.

Well, guess what?  I didn't get a nasty, rushing trot from him, but a slower one.  Again, my trainer liked what she saw.  She had me raise my hands up a little so that the bit would work on his mouth as it should.  And we just went around trotting for a bit before coming down to the walk and changing directions to go the other way.

This other way, he once again offered a nice trot, but this time my trainer had me put him on a circle.  She told me to use my inside leg to make him keep his trot up on the circle.  This helped and once we'd done a circle with a good trot going, we came off of it and made sure to keep that same trot.

This made him connect to me more, and while he wasn't collected, he was raising his back more under me.  It was a lovely feeling he was giving me, and when we came down to walk he stayed connected, and his back was swinging under me.  He stretched out nicely and it was overall such a good feeling.

I walked around for a bit after that, letting him stretch out long, while my trainer helped out the others.  Then my trainer asked me if I wanted to jump him.  I said I did, and she asked if there was anything I thought we needed to do beforehand.

I said no, except that I would've wanted to shorten my stirrups before we  did.  At the moment, I had them at flatwork length.  On those stirrup leathers, if I was to make them shorter it was going to be quite a bit shorter, because I've reached the end of the regular holes.  So I use the shorter length for when we jump, and the longer for when we flat.

My trainer said I could, but not by much, just one hole.  And I told her that to shorten them, it'd have to be more than that.  So she said she'd look at them to see if we needed to wrap them.

She determined that for the height we were jumping, and the effort Rugar would make, the length I had would be fine.  If I'd been jumping Mariah, we'd make them shorter.  She also said that part of the reason I might feel the need to shorten them was that she thought I was usually riding with a shorter stirrup than maybe I should have.  Therefore, this longer stirrup might make me think I needed them shorter, but really didn't.

She also said that people like George Morris and Anne Kursinski are insistent about flatting with one length of stirrup and jumping with another, because to flat with a jumping length stirrup doesn't really help the horse.  It can help the rider, be a rider exercise, but with the horse it's not particularly helpful, so there's no reason to do it otherwise.

I was fine with jumping with this length of stirrup at that height, which is only a little over a foot or so, I would guess.  Anyhow, after that, it was time that we went over the telephone poles in trot.

Rugar, once again, was chill.  We went to the jump in trot, and came out in trot, and there were no big efforts.  The first two rounds, I got into posting too soon after the jump, and my trainer told me I needed to keep the two point as long as I was on the line to the jump.  So, for the next two jumps, she worked with me on that.  She told me that if I was straight to and from the jump, I needed to be in two point.  If I was turning, I didn't have to be, but if I was straight, I should be.

So, we did that, and it went good, and then we walked for a bit before my trainer told me I was going to be jumping the tires.  So, I stopped Rugar next to that jump as she explained what I was going to need to do.  

First, she told me she wanted me to be coming off the left to this jump, so turning from the left to it.  Then she said that I would need to consider my line to make sure that I missed the telephone pole jump.  But, she also mentioned the angle at which I would jump the tires.  

She said I could jump them perpendicular, or at a slight angle, and asked me which I thought I should do.  I wasn't sure, because I didn't know / was slow in visualizing what the line would look like for each, but I mentioned that because of the mount block and some stuff near it being where it was, I would have to take that into account.

She said yes, and that if I landed at just a slight angle, it would put me on a line that was not headed straight into the other stuff.  Only a slight angle, going from right to left, but it would make the difference.  Otherwise, if I did it perpendicular to the jump, I would have to be quick on landing to give him direction.

So, after that instruction, off I went to try it.  I had to take a shorter line than I would've preferred, but we made it each of the three times we did it.  With this jump, Rugar had to make more of an effort than he did with telephone poles, so he landed in canter on the other side, but it was a nice canter.  I was able to bring him to trot pretty easily.

On the last line, it was a better one, and Rugar picked up that nice canter.  My trainer told me to keep the canter and have a circle in canter to finish things off.  She reminded me to keep the circle big so he could keep the canter.

The first circle I made was too small and too close to some objects in the arena, so I moved it a little farther to the north and that was better.  Then my trainer told me I could use the outside rein to slow him down.

This helped keep him from pushing out on the circle / smearing to the outside like he'd been doing, and it was really effective in slowing him down.  Just a bit before we came to walk, he slipped, but regained his balance and we went on.  My trainer was pointing out as we came down to walk and off the circle, that though Rugar had slipped, I hadn't changed in my body.  And looking back, I realized she was right.  I hadn't been thrown forward or lost my balance, but we'd just kept right on going.

This was rewarding to recognize for me.  I'm not saying I'll always do that when a horse slips, but I feel like things are coming together some for me.

After that I walked him out for a bit and then halted next to the others while Vivie went to try jumping Mariah.  My trainer asked me if I wanted to do more jumping on him, and I said no.  I told her I didn't think things could get much better for him or me, and she agreed that one this day, at this moment, things really couldn't get much better.  So we ended on that.  

Vivie did good on Mariah, literally just jumped her once and it was so good that my trainer had them end it right there.  So, that was the end of the lesson, and it was a good first round of jumping for the year.

Also, one thing I should mention is that my trainer reminded me two or three times to tilt my pelvis forward.  See, on Rugar, he has a dip in his back that sucks you in like a black hole, so you have to resist it by tilting your pelvis forward more than you might on another horse.  I could feel how when I would do that, I'd have better contact with the saddle, and it was interesting.  Also, there was another halted break in there somewhere, but I can't remember exactly where, so...

Anyhow, a good lesson, and Rugar was such a good boy, especially for having been off for awhile.

Actual lesson 1/10/2023