This lesson was kinda packed.  There was Vivie on Riggs, and James on Cordell.  But in addition, my Friend also came and rode Lily.  And my trainer was riding Romeo, remember him?  The fat chestnut?  Well, he's not as fat now, he's slowly shedding the pounds.  Fortunately we all went to the outdoor arena.  Still, we all seemed to have trouble with keeping out of each others way this time for some reason. 

As you've probably already guessed, I was mounted on Mariah.  About as soon as I mounted, my trainer told me to start doing a wavy line along the arena fence, using the bit to turn Mariah's head and have her head follow it. 

See, I was to go along the outside of the arena, but doing little turns so that I formed a wavy line.  Little turns, but the emphasis was for Mariah to follow the bit.

I haven't done this exercise before now, so I wasn't exactly sure what my trainer wanted at first.  But she added some clarification later on, so I got the idea.

See, Mariah needs to follow the bit whenever a hand opens out and asks her to.  If a hand opens out to the right, then she needs to follow with her body to the right.  Preferably, she'd also step the inside as she did so.  This is important for when little kids ride her later.  

We did this for quite a while.  Not necessarily because we needed a lot of work, but my trainer was busy with the others and so didn't assign anything else for awhile.  Sometimes, there seems to be this weird type of apathy / anxiety that grips me in a lesson, like, I won't do all that I should be doing because I don't want to do it wrong?  I'll just kinda dawdle along, and for the first half or so of the lesson, I was like that.

 At one point, my trainer told me that Mariah wasn't going to be able to bend if I didn't give with the outside rein to let her.  It's that uneven rein situation again.  I'm not kidding, it literally feels like I have the same amount of contact in each hand, but I'll look down at my reins and one will be significantly shorter than the other.  I guess it feels even to the horse to, when we're going straight.  But if we're turning, and the shorter rein happens to be the outside one, then they can't turn as much as you're asking them to. 

She also told me to lengthen my reins.  I didn't have to have so short of a rein on Mariah anymore.  

Mariah was pretty chill about all this, and I think we got some good turns.  Then my trainer told me to put her in a rising trot and start doing a serpentine, with the same emphasis on Mariah following the rein into the turn.  

Because friend was working on something down at one end of the arena, and I didn't want my line to mess up what she was doing by accident, (I'd already messed her up once while I was doing the wavy lines.  I was frustrated that I did because I knew where she was going, and yet I put myself there anyway.) I just kept to one side of the arena with my serpentine. 

To be honest, for awhile I just trotted around making these turns without doing anything that might improve them.  Then I told myself to get a grip, shake myself out of this weird paralysis, and start doing something before my trainer looked over and saw me not doing anything.  I know how to ride, it was about time I started acting like it. 

(I think my trainer also told me again to lengthen my reins as I did this exercise, but I don't remember any other instruction from her.)

So I did, making sure that Mariah truly bent herself and didn't 'fall' into the turn like she'll do.  I also tried to keep myself straight, not letting my left shoulder sneak out in front like it does. 

My trainer saw one good turn, and said that was looking good and I could come to walk.  The transition to walk was literally so soft.  I can't get over how responsive Mariah is right now.

Then my trainer asked if I wanted to jump her.  I said, "I guess."   So she told me to jump over the telephone poles, and to use the standard of another jump to help me get a good line to the jump.  I chose to turn to the jump going to the left, so counter-clockwise.

I just didn't know how Mariah would be.  So far, since I started riding her again, she's been better than I remember her being.  But I just didn't know.  And my trainer didn't tell me.  She did tell me to expect her to land cantering, but honestly, if I didn't know that by now...

I chose to go to the first jump with a guarded mindset.  I would hope for her to give me a nice, straight line to the jump.  But I would be prepared for her to throw in any crookedness or squiggly-ness.  

We came and made the turn to the jump in a nice, slower trot.  I pointed her at the jump, we had a good line.  I got into two point and waited to see what she would do, remembering to look up past the jump and fighting the urge to use my reins.

And can you believe it, she took a straight line to that jump.  No squiggly-ness, no crookedness.  In addition, when she realized we were headed for it, she kept pretty much the exact same trot.  She didn't speed up.  And when we got the jump, she basically stepped over it.  No huge leaps that threaten to throw me out of the saddle.  And wouldn't you know it, she didn't break into canter, just kept that trot going on the other side.

Needless to say, a very nice surprise.  

I went and did two more jumps after that, and it was pretty much the exact same.  I did think about speeding the trot up a little bit, because it was a tad slow for this.  

As I was heading to the fourth jump, literally as I was on the line to it, my trainer said,  "That's good Abby, come to walk."  I was like, "Umm, okay?"  And brought to Mariah to walk.  But I didn't take her off the line to the jump, I wasn't about to discourage Mariah's willingness to take me to it with no crookedness, and I knew we could just walk over it.

My trainer then said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot what you were doing.  Go ahead and walk over it." XD  I half wonder if she saw me turning the the jump, and thought I was still doing trot serpentines.  

After walking her over it, I let out the rein for Mariah and walked her around for awhile.  Then my trainer apologized again for interrupting my jumping and said to go back to it.  I can't remember if it was then that she mentioned for the first time that if the trot jumps went well, we'd do them in canter, or if she only said it to me after the trot jumps.

Either way, the next jumps went basically the same as the ones before them.  I did try to encourage her to speed up just the tiniest bit because her trot was a little too slow.  But I didn't use my leg for it, just tried to allow her to do so through my posting and enthusiasm level.

Then my trainer said to take it up to canter.

I did think about making a circle to get the canter, but decided to ask the in the corner we were going through on our way back to the jump.  It took a bit, and she huffed about it, but Mariah did give me the canter.  And it was that nice canter from last time, the one I can sit nicely.

In canter, she wanted to drift to the outside during the turn to the jump more than she did in trot, but it didn't throw our line off too greatly.  Once again, it was point and shoot.  Line her up to the jump, and she went to it.  All I had to do was keep my heels down, my eyes up, and make sure I wasn't throwing myself forward into two point.  

I had to fight more about not getting tense about her canter, and her canter did speed up somewhat the longer we spent jumping, but it wasn't anything crazy.  In fact, it was a little bit of a problem, how easily I could get her to slow down and break to trot.  Twice I accidently had her break to trot just before we turned to go to the jump, so we had to pick it up again.  I had to be careful about that.

After we'd jumped about three or four times times in canter, I thought about being done, but went back around to do another jump and see if I couldn't get her to drift less on her turn to the jump.  I was fairly successful in that, and it might have been our last jump.  But, I believe she got her striding off and therefore we hit the jump.

Obviously, we couldn't end on that one.  So around we went again.  This time we got a nicer turn as before, but she didn't knock the jump.  I think that was the one we ended on, or we may have done another one.  I'm not sure.

And you know, because she was cantering, she had to actually jump the jump, not step over it.  But they weren't these huge, crazy leaps she's taken in the past.  It was just the amount needed to clear the logs easily, and so pleasant to ride.

It was like the culmination of everything we've worked towards with her.  She was just doing her jumping job, like she was supposed to, and it was fun to jump her, not crazy.  

During all the jumping I did, my trainer never really told me to do anything, or change anything.  There was really nothing for her to say, I don't think, because it was just going so well.  I'm sure she would have preferred that Mariah didn't drift on the turns in canter, but that was pretty much all that wasn't nice about it.  

Anyhow, after a nice jump, I let her come to walk and walked her out on a long rein.  By that time, the lesson for the others was pretty much finished.  

After we'd walked for some time, my trainer mentioned how calm and different Mariah had been about jumping, which I agreed with.  Then she said I could be done, or do a few more jumps.  I chose to be done, I was very happy with what we'd done.  

So yeah, that was a very pleasant and wonderful jumping ride on Mariah.  I'm really glad I managed to shake myself out of that apathy / anxiety induced paralysis half way through.  If I hadn't, perhaps it would have gone the same, but at least I was ready if it didn't.

One last thing, after the jumping, Mariah was just chill and calm.  She didn't get all that riled up during the jumping, and was quite calm afterwards, I didn't have to walk around for awhile to get her to calm down again.  She was the same level-headed calm that she'd been when I first mounted her, perhaps even calmer. 

My trainer also mentioned that now Mariah's keeping her head down lower, so we can start to use a longer rein with her.  That is something new I'm going to have to get used to.  

It makes me glad that I had a riding journal when she first arrived and I started riding her.  That way, I can look back on all the progress she's made and know just how much she's changed.  And how much I've changed in my ability to handle her.  She's taught me a lot.

Overall, it was a pretty good ride on her!

Actual lesson 10/4/2022