So, I showed up at my trainer's place, and started folding feed sacks, as per usual.  When I looked down the pens, I noted a white pony in the pen that Mistletoe and Riggs used to be in, before the fence got broken down and they merged with the rest of the horses. 

Well, the fence was back up, and there was a new horse in it. (Actually two new horses, but I didn't see the chestnut till later.) 

After I'd finished with feed sacks, and hauled some full feed sacks with the wheelbarrow to place them beside the lesson horse pen, plus shoving the flack of alfalfa that horse who was tied up and eating on it had pushed away, my trainer told me to go get that white pony.  She said his name was Nibbs, and that I was going to ride him today. 

She also said that Nibbs had a thyroid condition.  This condition makes it so that, if he ever stops working, his muscles just leave.  Like, not the regular, slow fading away that happens to all horses if they're not in work, but like, they're gone.  Like, it makes him look so skinny! 

Thus, this horse was sent to my trainer for the summer.  He's a pretty well trained horse, so I believe my trainer is going to use him in lessons for the summer.  He gets worked, so his muscles come back and don't go away, and my trainer gets an extra lesson horse.  

Trainer told me he might need one of the inflatable pads for his withers, like what we use on Cordell and Mariah, but that she'd let me make the judgement as to whether he did or not.

About as soon as I went in that pen and got a good look at his withers, I was like, "Yeah, we're sticking a pad on that."  It was, I think, worse than Mariah's shark fin withers, so if she needed one, I was pretty sure Nibbs would.

Nibbs might be the same height as Shorty, but it's honestly hard to tell because he looks so skinny right now.  I know his head's a lot smaller than Shorty's.  

He was easy to catch and tie.  He has to be above 6 years old, for his coat is all the way white, but I don't think he's very old.  Of course, he was a muddy mess, and I gave up on ever getting him completely white.  My main goal was just to clear all the clumps of mud off of him XD

He would pick his hooves up for me, but on his front hooves, he'd try to take them away from me.  I just stuck with him, until he let me set them down on my terms. 

My trainer saw me do this with one of the hooves, and she was like, "Thank you for doing that" XD  He needs some help with that. 

After that, she asked, "Isn't that chestnut in there with him the fattest horse you've ever seen?" 

Yeah, he was the fattest horse I'd ever seen.  Okay, like, obese fat.  Not just chubby, but fat.  Like, if we don't fix this soon he's going to have some major health problems, type of fat.  

She explained that at his home, he lived in a pasture with two other horses.  These horses got grain, and Romeo (the chestnut) didn't get all of it.  Because the pasture's grace is literally only two inches tall, or less, he shouldn't have ballooned to that big of a size.

For these reasons, my trainer thinks that he has Cushings.  But the owners don't want to get the bloodwork done to see if he actually has it.  They think he's so fat because their grass is so 'good'.

So, my trainer is going to treat him as if he has Cushings and see what happens.  That means absolutely no grain for him, just plain, dry hay.

Anyhow, onto the ride with Nibbs. 

As I led Nibbs up the mounting block, and stopped when I wanted him to stop, he literally just ran into me.  Not meanly, or even that intentionally.  But no respect for my personal space.  It's so weird because I'm used to my trainer's horses, who know that you don't do that.  So...  Guess we're going to work on that XD

I didn't know if Nibbs would stand still for me to mount from the block, so I watched him closely as I went to mount.  He stood perfectly still as I stuck my foot in the stirrup and swung my leg over.  However, as soon as my seat touched the saddle, he started forward.  I hadn't expected that, but managed to stop him before he got too far. 

My trainer told me to go ahead and mount him up several times, until he got the idea he wasn't to walk forward.  I didn't have to be mean about it, just firm.  See, that's what he thought he was supposed to do, but it's not something my trainer wants her horses doing.  

I mounted him four to six different times.  Each time, I caught him as he started to step off. By the final mounting, he was getting the idea.  

My trainer had said, before this mounting thing started, that Nibbs had been several different places, so he probably wouldn't be spooked by anything in the indoor arena.  But of course, if he wanted to look at something, let him look.  

Sure enough, Nibbs wasn't perturbed by much.  I walked him around the arena.  Oh, I'd better mention that I had my lesson with a girl I'll call Josie.  I've lessoned with her before, but not for awhile now, so if I've already given her a name, well...  *shrugs*  She was riding Twister. 

After walking around the arena, my trainer pointed out to me that Nibbs was used to the type of contact that brings the bit to the horse with the hands, instead of bring the horse to the bit with the seat and legs.  He's a little like Twister in this way. So, she wanted me to 'push' Nibbs forward so that he would come to the bit.

She also had four poles, which usually make up the circle of poles, laid out out the ground in a row.  She had me go over them, and she said my challenge was to give Nibbs enough rein that he could look at the poles, but still be able to feel / keep contact with his mouth.  Of course, I also had to keep him moving.  Nibbs wasn't really lazy, he just had to know you meant business. 

Nibbs did pretty good with going over the poles.  Feeling just how much to give to him wasn't too hard, especially as the more he went over the poles, the less he looked at him so the less I had to give to him. 

Then my trainer told me to do that in trot.  And that was basically the meat of the lesson.

We did a lot of trotting over these poles.  My trainer, in the first round, wanted him to keep a consistent trot throughout the line of poles.  He would try to skip the last pole or two by taking a bigger stride / kinda jumping through it.  It felt terrible to ride and was obviously not ideal.

His trot didn't have to be fast, necessarily, just consistent, and of course I had to make sure I got a straight line to the poles.  

By the end of that first session of trotting over those poles, we were doing pretty good.  We took a walk break, during which Josie started trotting Twister over them.  Then my trainer told me to start doing that again with Nibbs, so I joined Josie on the merry go round XD

I don't remember much about this second round.  I do know that my trainer was having a tiff-taff with Sage, which escalated to my trainer really having to get after her.  (My trainer doesn't like to do this, but Sage in particular has a high threshold to pressure.  At the point at which most horses would yield to pressure, Sage will just say "Nah, whatever" and ignore it.  My trainer has tried other ways, but this is pretty much the only one that works.) 

I believe we took another break, and then went back to it.  This time my trainer and I had miscommunication.  My trainer was telling me to change the trot, but she didn't tell me / I wasn't sure what she wanted me to change it to, slower or faster? It wasn't until she told me that sitting the trot would help that I knew she wanted me to slow him down. 

Slowing him down wasn't hard, so long as I didn't hang on the reins and get tense, of course.  We did some pretty good trot rounds with me doing sitting trot on him.  

To be honest, the pole work part of this lesson is a blur in my memory because we just did so much of it.  Of course, part of this was to begin Nibbs's muscle building program.  

I did learn that my trainer wanted him to keep a consistent trot throughout the line of poles, and that it didn't have to be fast in order to do this.  In fact, you didn't want it to be too fast.  

After that, it was time for some canter.  We did this in a way I haven't done before, but it worked well.  

So, Josie and I would be going the same direction around the arena.  Josie would pick up a canter on Twister and keep it until she came up behind Nibbs and me.  Then she'd come down to trot, or walk, whatever she wanted.  I'd pick up the canter then, and canter around until I came up behind her and Twister.  I'd come to trot or walk, she'd go into canter, and so the cycle continued.  

I adored Nibbs's canter!  It was pretty comfy to sit and fun to ride.  I kinda expected him to be hard to keep going, so the first few rounds of cantering, I was grinding my heels into him.  My trainer reminded me not to do this, that is, to put my heels down XD  Going around the other way was better in that regard.

That was probably my favorite part of the ride right there.  

It was nice to ride a new horse that presented no 'major' problems.  Of course, he had several little ones.  But not like Mariah's tendency to throw a hissy fit when she has to do something she doesn't like, or Twister's craftiness, or Cordell's weird body, although that isn't Cordell's fault. 

I got to ride Cordell out in the back after that.  My trainer wanted me work on coaxing him from a good running walk, out into a nice trot with his head low.  This is part of her campaign to get Cordell's back looking somewhat normal.

I didn't do as well as I could have, I got hung up on things I should not have.  But my trainer didn't seem to think so, and we did make some progress.

Rain had come recently, and made the outdoor arena a blank canvas.  Thus, you could tell where I'd been riding by the hoof prints in the ground.  My trainer texted the next day and said there were some really round circles out in her arena from me working with Cordell XD  I'm flattered she said they were round lol.  

Actual lesson 6/28/2022