Today you could feel a change coming on in the weather.  Spring seemed closer than it ever had before.

My first job was the ever present stuffing feed sacks.  But, after telling me this, my trainer gave me another job.  I was to muck out Mr. Expensive horse's stall and the feeding pen that currently holds a little piebald gelding.

My trainer gave me instructions for both of them, and after finding out where the wheelbarrow / shovel were and where I was to dump it, I was left to my own devices.  By the way, I was dumping it in my trainer's garden ;) 

I'm sure you remember this expensive gelding from my last entry.  I decided to do his pen first after I'd done the feed sacks.  I'm going to call this expensive horse 'Moose'  'cause that's what my trainer calls him and it really suits him.

Moose was all too friendly and eager to cooperate.  In a way, it was really sweet but also annoying.  He still doesn't have a good concept of 'personal space'.  He mostly stood by the wheelbarrow and sniffed / fidgeted / chewed with the handles of it while I was in there.  I think he viewed me as his personal entertainment device.

The gate to his pen happened to be one of those panel gates.  And it was raised off the ground, creating a bar I had to wrestle the wheelbarrow over every time I went out of the pen.  Add that to the fact that Moose would have slipped out if I wasn't careful, and getting out / in to the pen wasn't my favorite thing.

However, I have to admit, it was nice to muck out a stall again.  

After I'd hauled out 4 loads, I went to get a drink of water.  My trainer was riding Riggs in the indoor arena at the time.  She interrupted my mucking by telling me to go catch Cordell and tack him up for Vivie's lesson.  

So, I went and caught sweet Cordell.  I had to do a bit of searching for the tack, nearly all of it was gone from the tack shed.  Turns out it was under the indoor arena roof, in the northwest corner.  

Anyhow, Vivie arrived and she brought 2 large bags of very nice looking apples for the horses.  My trainer had told her that she could bring apples for the horses, but she didn't expect Vivie to bring so many XD

It was while I was tacking up Cordell (Vivie hadn't arrived yet) that my trainer lined me out on what I was going to do next.  She said after I'd tacked up Cordell to catch Mariah for my lesson.  Oh, and while I was tacking her up, to put all the tack that was under the arena in the tack shed.  By the way, I also needed to put Riggs up when my trainer was done riding her.  

And after that she said she was glad we didn't write all of that down because otherwise I'd look at it and never return XD

I rode Mariah again for my lesson.  She seemed more grumpy than she did last time.  I realized, thinking about it later, that the first time I met / rode her, before she was a Show horse, she wasn't that way that I remember.  

Anyhow, after a little bit of trouble at the mounting block, we were off and running.  My trainer set the tone for the whole ride: straightness.  She wanted Mariah to be straight, even if that meant I had to stop her to make her straight.  Mariah must go through the corners bent the right way, etc.  

We walked around the arena first one way, and then the other on a loose rein.  Going to the right, or clockwise, is my easy side on both Shorty and Mariah.  That's because my left side likes to twist out of place going to the left, thus making me crooked and my horse crooked.  But if I keep my shoulder / side in their place, things go alright.  

I was real careful to do this when we went to the left, and therefore for the most part, we were straight.  

Then my trainer, while we were still going to the left, told me to pick up the trot.  So I shortened my reins, then asked for it, and Mariah shot off into it.  Trainer told me to shorten my reins even more.  

When we went through the first corner, it was terrible.  Mariah was utterly crooked.  My trainer would not have it and told me to make a circle to go through the corner again.  Once again, when we came up to that corner, she tried to go crooked again, throwing her inside shoulder out and her nose to the outside, the complete opposite of the bend we wanted.  

So my trainer had me do with her what I had done with Twister.  She had me turn Mariah's head right into the fence in the corner.  This made her get straight.  Then we went through the corner again, this time in walk.  Once again, Mariah tried to get crooked, and once again, I ran her face into the wall.  

I think on the third try she didn't get crooked, but I don't remember for sure.  At some point, she decided to not be crooked, so we went through the corner and back into trot.  And after that we a lot of emphasis on going through the corners straight.  

When I really focused on that, we did pretty good.  Mariah was doing her speedy trot, but I was careful to keep my legs under me and not try to slow her down by hanging.  We did a smooth change of direction and trotted a lap or two the other way, again putting emphasis on going through the corners straight. 

Once Trainer was satisfied with that, we came down to walk and then halted for a break.  My trainer was saddling up a chestnut horse with a western saddle.  She asked if I'd met Lucky, and I said no, I hadn't.  

She said he'd been here before because he bucked.  But now he only bucked when he saw his friends and couldn't go to them.  The reason he did so, she said, was because his right foreleg is loaded.  Like, he puts his weight on the right foreleg so much that he's reluctant to lift it.  

Therefore, when he gets stressed, he feels trapped because he can't lift that right foreleg.  And he bucks to get himself out of it, to un-stick that right foreleg.  So, he's back again at my trainer's for her to help him with that.

Trainer also said that we weren't going to canter Mariah before we jumped her.  She would get enough cantering done while jumping, and besides that, we didn't want her to start thinking we always cantered in the middle of the lesson.  Trainer said she might already think this, and that if she did think she was supposed to  canter, to let her but then bring her back to trot and not try to prevent her.  She'd had too much of that in her life already.

Trainer told me I could pick which direction I wanted to go first, and what side of the arena I thought would be best, the side with the indoor roof or the outdoor part.  And last but not least, she told me to not pick a direction, only to jump the jump and have Mariah go the opposite way XD  

I chose the outdoor part, and thought going clockwise would be best for the first round, as that's the direction I have the least trouble keeping straight on. 

Unfortunately, I forgot that that was also the direction that Mariah struggled to turn well on.  *smacks forehead*  The first time we went to the jump, we got crooked and had to stop to straighten out.

It took a little while for Mariah to settle.  My trainer told me to back her up several times when she took a step forward.  She needed to be straight and calm in her straightness.  

My trainer pointed out that I hadn't chosen the best direction to start off on.  But she didn't make me change directions.  We went over the jump in walk nice and straight, then picked up the trot again.  

But, going through the last corner was another area we struggled.  Mariah once again was crooked, and my trainer was not having it.  She had me circle a couple of times until we got it right and then went on.  

The jump was the least of our worries, staying straight was the whole goal.  Mariah still jumped big and landed in canter, of course, but she never really fought me about coming back down to the trot.  

A lot of the time, going through that corner, we had to make a circle and do it again.  While a circle was a good tool for fixing the crookedness, my trainer told me we were trying to signal to Mariah that slowing down, / a half half or check on the reins means she needs to straighten.  And sure enough, at one point my trainer told me to stop her, but when I went to stop her she straightened out and so Trainer told us to keep going.

But for all this talk about crookedness and straightness, we didn't miss the jump but once.  And even then we didn't completely miss it but yeah,  I should've been steering better.

Once we got a nice, straight jump out of Mariah we came to the walk and let her have a long rein with some praise.  We walked a lap, did a change of direction, and then did it all over again.  

Again, Mariah really wanted to be crooked going through this last corner before the jump, and we had to make some circles until she got it right.  At one point, my trainer told me to really put my inside leg on and push her up into the corner.

Mariah really did not like this.  I could feel her bunch up into an angry little black mare ball, and my trainer told me to let her canter if she wanted to.  But she did end up going straight through the corner and no cantering.  

But more than straightness, my trainer put more emphasis on me having a nice trot and being calm going to the jump, and steering after the jump.  She told me if the trot was too fast, to do a circle and get the one I wanted.  While I was doing the circle, she had me use my inside leg a little to get Mariah to bend, and this was effective in slowing her down.  Sometimes I forget that I can slow her down now XD

My trainer also told me to not lean forward so much in my two point on the way to the jump, but to keep my chest more up.  Leaning forward encouraged Mariah to go faster.

Also, I had to be really careful I was looking where I was going after the jump.  It was all to easy to be completely focused on the jump, only to get over the jump and Mariah be like,  "You're not telling me where to go so I'll just pick a direction".  

As has always been told to me by my trainer, before and after, especially before, the jump matters much more than the jump itself.  Much, much more.   

We never got a jump where Mariah landed in trot this lesson, but we did get several nice, calm ones, and it was on that that we ended it.

After walking Mariah out again on a long rein, my trainer gave me the option to canter her or end it there.  I decided Mariah was in a good place and said I'd end it there.  Looking back, I think I should have cantered her.

Anyhow, I untacked her.  My trainer told me to put Cordell and her up.  As I was leading Cordell away, she also told me to feed Mariah an apple in a black feed tub when I came back :) 

I was very happy to be able to do this.  However, Mariah nuzzled the apple right out of the feed pan into the arena!  I had to go into the arena to get it *smacks forehead*  I was a little more careful next time to make sure that if she nuzzled it out, it'd go in the opposite direction XD 

But yeah, that was fun to do :) 

After putting Mariah up, it was back to mucking out Moose's stall.  In total, I hauled 8 loads from his stall.  EIGHT LOADS.  Good grief.  It took me so long to muck it out that I didn't get to finish Turbo's stall.  

Turbo's sweet, I think.  And his gate was a lot easier to go in and out of.  He wasn't comfortable with me being in there, but neither did he stay huddled in a corner, he actually stood by the wheelbarrow the whole time.   

So yeah, that was my lesson for this week.  

Actual lesson 3/1/2022