When I arrived, my first job was to gather feed sacks, then take the hay I'd scooped up and put in Riggs & Mistletoe's pen, and go catch Mariah for my lesson.

After dumping the hay in Riggs & Mistletoe's pen under the shelter so it wouldn't blow away, my trainer interrupted my taking the wheelbarrow back to the tack shed.  She wanted me to scoop up the hay Sea Monster had left in the arena.

I petted the big gray cat Obitus while waiting for my trainer to bring me the hay rake.  He's such a lover cat XD  I finished scooping up the hay, then went to fetch Mariah.  

Mariah has changed, my trainer told me as I was tacking her up.  She had been less grumpy the last few days.  7 months of work had finally lead to a change.  

And yeah, she was less grumpy.  She didn't hardly pin her ears at me when I was grooming her.  When I tacked her up, she did try to bite the fence.  My trainer told me to just slap her when she did that.  It was fine if she licked it, but no biting. 

Sally came for her lesson as well, and it was nice to ride in the morning with her again.  She rode Cordell. 

When I went to adjust my stirrups, I had to fiddle with them a lot, because they'd been unrolled.  See, before, the stirrup leathers were 'rolled' around the stirrup, but now they go straight through like normal.  Therefore I wasn't sure how long my stirrups should be.  

Mariah only gave me a little trouble with mounting, and I think it was my fault because I was unsure.  But we mounted without too much trouble.

I immediately knew that my stirrups were uneven, the right one was longer than I wanted.  I stopped Mariah after moving away from the block and went to fiddle with it.  But Mariah started forwards again.

I berate myself that I let her get away with it before my trainer told me not too.  *smacks forehead* I know better than that.  That's something you never let Mariah or Lily do.  Any horse, for that matter.  

Anyhow I stopped her.  After telling my trainer what the deal was with my stirrup, she said I could go around the arena without my stirrups for a little while.  So that's how I ended up doing no stirrups for the first time in months :P  

It wasn't hard, and I felt fairly safe despite being on Mariah.  I went around the arena a lap or two with her on a long rein.

When my trainer summoned me over to adjust my stirrup for me, and I went to halt, it felt different without stirrups.  My trainer pointed out that I was over arching my back, as I didn't have a stirrup to push down against.  This wasn't going to help Mariah halt, as it was an entirely new sensation to her, so she didn't know what it meant.

  And that's how, after Trainer adjusted my stirrup, I still did some more no stirrup work, this time interspersed with halts.  

Getting the feeling of halting without stirrups was harder than I liked.  That is, halting with my body.  Apparently I've really been relying on my stirrups for that, which is annoying to me.  So, I'll be working on that a little.  

After two or three laps doing that, my trainer told me to pick up my stirrups and start doing walk-trot transitions.  Inwardly, when she said this, I kinda went "Eeeee".  In the past, I've struggled with fast horses like Mariah, and now some of those problems reared their ugly heads again, because I let them get to me.  

The main problem was getting Mariah to come down to the walk and stay in the walk.  Back when I was riding Gator, this was also a problem for me, and it's been with Lily too.  I'm just so worried they'll shoot back up into trot.

Thus, I tense up, which only serves to make the problem a ton worse.  And my solution to the whole thing is to 'hang' on my horse's mouth.  Ironically, this only makes them try harder to break into trot.  

So this started happening.  But my trainer, before it spiraled too far downhill, told me to just make Mariah stop, and TO NOT HANG.  If Mariah wanted to break into trot, I would just make her stop and stand still.  But I was not, under any circumstances, allowed to hang on the reins.  

I actually had a lot of time to practice these transitions by myself, which was good.  The reason was that Sally was really struggling with just letting Cordell walk over a six inch pole.  Now, don't judge her.  If you'd seen Cordell stumble and Helen fall off the side of his neck, you might be a little iffy about it too.  (After she'd worked that out, she actually went gaiting on Cordell all by herself.)  

I'm sorry that she was having problems with that, I know what that's like, but it did give me time to work things out with Mariah.  I really focused on using my body to slow down, my posting to keep her in a nice trot, and not hanging.  

We just went around the arena doing a lot of transitions.  Lots.  Some were prettier than others, but it all got better in the end.  And I calmed down.   

Once my trainer had sorted things out with Sally, she asked me if I wanted to do some jumping with Mariah.  Now, after what I'd gone through, did I really want to?  No.  Did I think I could?  Yes. So I agreed to jump her.

It was really just a six inch pole off the ground.  My trainer specifically wanted me to make absolutely sure that Mariah was straight to it.  If she was crooked, I was to stop her, then straighten her out before going over it.  We want to stop that nasty thing she does where she just approaches the jump with her shoulder facing it.  

I got to walk over the pole a couple of times before going into trot.  I had to stop her once or twice to line her out.  But for all that, she wasn't too dodgy or crooked.  

At one point, my trainer actually said that I needed to give her a little leg, which is a weird thing to hear when you're riding Mariah.  Looking back now, I see I need to not 'assume' so much about a horse, but rather listen to them to see what they're actually doing / need.

Going into trot, I remembered that I could not hang on Mariah's face.  I just couldn't do that.  And I had to stay calm.  

Because I maintained these two things, our jumps weren't bad.  Mariah actually wasn't crooked the whole time we were trotting, and I never had to stop her.  We also never missed a jump the whole time.  

Of course, the first couple of jumps she landed in canter, but I expected that.  What I didn't expect was that more than have time, she came back to trot on her own.  Like, I just sat up from two point, all ready to have to pull her back down, and she'd switch for me.  So nice.  

I think it was after the first or second jump my trainer said, "Good Abby, now rinse and repeat until she doesn't land in canter but stays in trot."  

That took a little while.  

My trainer also wanted me to not let her glide through the turn on the way to the jump.  She brought this up only a couple of jumps before we finished that round, and so I didn't get to practice it much going that way.  But I made a note of it and made sure to do better going the other way.  

Eventually Mariah jumped and did land in trot, which automatically earned her a walk and praise.  

We took a break, and then continued jumping, but went counter-clockwise this round.  

This round I got 'jumped out the tack' the first few times.  The reasons being, according to my trainer, that I wasn't ready to leave the ground when Mariah was, I was late in getting into two point, and I needed to press my hands down into her neck so they 'caught' me one the other side of the jump.

So, fixing these things, the jumping went a lot nicer.  Mariah herself didn't give any problems.

It's thrilling to finally be at the level where now I can work on my jumping like that.  Something I've been working towards.  My trainer mentioned that I'll probably be riding mostly Mariah and Twister from now on.

After taking another break, my trainer asked if I wanted to canter her a little, despite the fact that the lesson normally would have ended at that time.   

So, I did. My trainer mentioned that, if I wanted to, I could move up into two point while cantering.  But I had to expect Mariah to go a little faster, which was fine, so long as she wasn't constantly gathering speed.  I didn't ever end up doing this, but it's interesting to know that I could've.    

Going clockwise was pretty nice.  She kept a lovely, slow canter, and didn't try to speed up very often.  I still marvel at how much it's changed from when I first started riding her.  

Going counter-clockwise wasn't as nice, because I felt like she was too speedy.  But I don't know if that's all in my head.  Otherwise, again, very nice.

Funny thing, going counter-clockwise she always seems to speed up along the east and north side.  It's weird, but it happened all throughout the ride, I'm not sure if I'm causing it or what.  My trainer didn't seem to notice it, but if she hasn't already she probably will eventually! 

After cantering, as I was walking her out, my trainer asked me what I thought I could have done to keep Mariah from gliding through the turn when jumping.

My first thought was to block her with / step into my outside leg, to keep her from gliding out.  My trainer agreed this could work, but only if applied before Mariah started doing it.  

The second answer from me was to steer more definitively.  My trainer thought this was better, especially for when she was already gliding through the turn.  I could open my inside rein, and raise it up if needed, to bring her back in.  

My trainer said I could do a few more jumps and practice this, if I wanted, but I thought Mariah was in a good place, so I left it alone for next time.

After I untacked Mariah, I put Cordell and her back in the pens.  Then I went alone the fence and did some more scooping hay, this time along the fence of the donkey and lesson horse pens.  My trainer had fed them flakes from square bales, as her normal order of round bales hadn't come in yet, and some of it blows out of the pens.  I was to put it back in.  

It was nice to be able to actually feed the horses.  I tried to be nice to Yucca, the former stud colt, who's the lowest in ranking, and Mariah, 'cause she's my fave right now ;)  

Then I filled the water tank in the pen that has Sage, my trainer's filly, the red roan filly, and Tidbit.  As I've said before, we have to keep the water up higher so Tidbit can reach it.  I also picked up some trash.

Carol came for her lesson.  She'd been having a rough time, and my trainer was real kind to her.  Carol didn't think she could ride well that day, and had my trainer ride Medina instead while she watched. 

My trainer asked me if I wanted to ride another horse.  I did, and she asked which one.  I said I didn't know.  So she told me to pick a horse that was broke XD  and that I could ride Mariah again if I wanted too.  

I did think about riding Lily, and wanted to, but she was taking a nap at the time.  So I ended up with Mariah again. 

My ride on Mariah was just a nice, quiet, walk ride with me practicing a couple of things.  We walked over stuff, did the face the wall exercise, a serpentine or two, etc.  Good grief guys, I'm really falling for that little sassy 14.1 hh black mare!  

So yeah, that was my time there.  This entry is really short and brief (other than the lesson.)  But it was a fun time, and I wish I could write more. 

Actual lesson 2/8/2022