Once again, I got to both ground work and ride Mariah.  Partly because it was the dry place to work.

We'd gotten a lot of rain recently, and the water had pooled in a puddle at the hitching post.  When I saw the mud absolutely caking Mariah's hooves, I knew there was no point in trying to avoid it.  I just got my hands muddy and lived with it.

Anyhow, after finishing grooming her off, I led her to the outdoor and started seeing how grumpy she was / getting her to yield her hindquarters as a warm up.  She onnly mildly put her ears back and not for very long, so she did good.  Fairly relaxed, etc.

My trainer came out with a client horse and told me that when I was ready, I could start taking her over the telephone poles like last time.  She said we were going to do that exercise, and then at the end we were going to do some things to work on her leading.  Mariah is better about leading since she came here, but she's still not where my trainer would like her to be.

When it came to the stepping over the poles exercise, my trainer wanted me to only let her go four or five circles without her straightening herself up before 'hustling' her.  If she didn't start being straight on her own, by making her go faster, especially right before the poles, it'd be harder for her to go over them.  We want to  make her being crooked harder for her, and being straight easier, and one way to do that is to make her go faster.  If she goes faster and meets the pole before she planned to, then if she's not straight it'll be harder for her.

I felt like I'd covered all the bases with Mariah, so I led her over to start the pole exercise.  She was so much better than she was last time about it.  It didn't take her long for her to straighten herself up and step over the pole with  her inside foot first.  So I didn't do very much of that before asking my trainer if she wanted me to do the exercise in trot as well. 

Mariah was just about as good in trot as she was in walk.  I rewarded her multiple times and honestly, it was fairly easy for both of us.

Then it was time to take it up into canter, and this time my trainer didn't give me the flag.  She wanted me to use my arm and flap it against my side.  Which honestly did not seem like enough to me to make her canter.  She also told me not to chase her around the circle with my feet, and that the best time to ask her for canter was right before the rail road ties or telephone poles, so that she'd land in canter after going over them.

It didn't go well in the beginning.  Mariah went faster in trot, but she wouldn't pick up the canter.  I didn't have enough vigor, I don't think, and I didn't feel like I had anything to back my words up with, so I would be chasing her with my feet.  

My trainer took her from me and got after her.  Mariah was puffing a bit afterwards, so she had me walk her around for a bit before coming back to the exercise.

Again, it didn't go so well for me, it was more like I had Mariah on a really fast treadmill than me asking her to canter.  I still had that feeling that I had nothing to back up my words with, and so how could I convince her that I was serious about having her canter?  

Two things helped with this.  At one point, when I was sending her out to try again, she was being a little slow about it.  My trainer had me pick up the tail end of that lead rope and smack her good with it while she was close.  That told her I was serious about making her move forward, and she rushed off into canter.  

The second thing that helped was that my trainer had me pick up a dirt clod or two to throw at her.  Not big ones, but something that would make a point when I threw it at her hind end.  It turns out that a well aimed dirt clod is good at making a horse take you seriously.  

When it came time to bring her to walk as a reward for when she did well, my trainer told me I needed to be more assertive and really say 'hey, I told you to whoa'.  Also, she'd started a habit of coming in towards me when I told her to whoa, and my trainer had me back her up.

We never got to working on her leading because that took up so much time.  I think my trainer will probably have me work on that next week.  One thing I'm going to change is making sure she's responsive when I ask her to trot.  If I'd done that, maybe she would've taken me more seriously when I asked for the canter.

We went back to the hitching post and mud to tack up.  Vivie and Friend had come for the groundwork lesson as well.  Vivie had worked with Cordell, and Friend with Romeo.  This was actually to be Romeo's last lesson, as he's going home for some weeks, but my trainer says he'll be coming back.  (I hope so.  Though I haven't worked with or ridden him much, I like him.)

James came for the riding lesson, and he got to ride Riggs.  I didn't struggle with the mounting block with Mariah like I had last time, and I think last time was more of a miscommunication between us than her being naughty.

 After I'd mounted, I walked her around to scout out the muddy spots.  The entire east side of the arena, in other words one of the long sides, was in mud too slick to ride in for several feet from the fence, so you had to ride alongside it.  The northeast corner was again flooded as well.  So we had even less of the arena than last time to ride in.

There was no jumping this lesson, in fact I only trotted Mariah once.  Friend and James did much more trotting and cantering, but for Vivie and I, it was lateral work on Cordell and Mariah.

Lateral work is always something I've wanted to do more of with Mariah, because I've always felt that with her sensitive nature she could do well with it.

Vivie was already doing an exercise with Cordell, and my trainer told me to do that with Mariah as well.  It's where you walk parallel with the fence, then turn the horse's nose to it and push them to the side with your outside leg so that you're essentially leg yielding them along the wall.  After some steps, you let them walk straight.  My trainer asked me if we'd done this exercise before, and I said not much, if any.

But, as I started to do it, I realized I had done this exercise before, a lot.  Just not at my trainer's.  Before Shorty went lame, we did a lot of leg yield.  Through youtube, I'd discovered this exercise as a way of making a horse step more under themselves with their hind legs, which was something I felt Shorty and I needed help with.  I  did this exercise often with him, and we were getting good at it before he went lame.

My trainer wanted me and Vivie to do this along the one long side of the arena that wasn't muddy.  If there'd been two long sides of the arena available, we could've each picked a side and worked on it individually.  As it was, we had to watch out for each other.

I first started doing this exercise to the left.  I had to fiddle with it to see what it felt like to have her actually crossing her hindlegs, and often it was too easy for her.  She'd bring them all the way around and we'd get straight to the fence and stuck.  For the most part, I was able to get us out of this, and it was the easier side.

The harder side was going to the right.  She didn't want to bend this direction.  She would turn her head, but keep tracking forward without crossing her  hind legs.  I had to work more at this and practiced more on this side then on the other.

My trainer told me near the end that Mariah might need a mental break from this and to let her trot out for a bit if she did.  I could feel her starting to get a little agitated, so soon afterwards I let her trot out.  She snorted and blowed a bunch, which my trainer said was a sign that she needed that trot out.

She asked me which side was easier for Mariah to do that exercise, and for a moment I blanked as I tried to think how to say which direction was easier.  My trainer explained that whichever direction that the hindquarters went into, for example, to the left for Mariah, that that would be called haunches in to the left.  She said the fence blocked you from doing haunches in to the right if you were going left, the fence would turn it into a shoulder-in.  I knew about shoulder - in and nodded in understanding, so my trainer said I must have been doing some research or youtubing.  Which is true ;) 

Mariah and I came took a halted break where we could watch Vivie and Cordell attempt some steps of haunches-in.  My trainer would have them do the movement in front of her, so she could give them pointers, then have them circle around behind her and come along the fence to do the movement again.  It was really nice to have this one-on-one attention from my trainer when attempting something new like this.

Vivie did good with it.  It was clear that she would struggle with some things, and of course she didn't do it perfectly for the first time, but she did get some moments and steps of haunches in.  It was as I was watching her that I realized the horse didn't need to be as bent as I thought they did.  Actually, they needed to be more straight in their body.

However, I only realized this in the back of my mind, and I wish I'd known that more in the front of my mind when it came my turn to do it.  My trainer had us do it on the side that's was easier for the horse, so in this case it was haunches in to the left for Mariah and me, as that had proved to be her better side.

I definitely had to fiddle with it.  My trainer wanted me to keep at it until Mariah was actually straight in her body, again, something I would've liked to realized better at the time. 

 It was a dance that changed at any moment.  Sometimes you had to use your outside leg, the leg pushing over, to bring the hindquarters over, but then you might have to change again to bring the shoulders more over.  You didn't want her shoulders or her hindquarters leading if possible.

My biggest struggle was not to clench down and hold on that outside rein once I'd brought her nose the fence.  It felt like of if I let it go, she'd swing back around and become straight again.  It was a hard feeling to resist, and my trainer was constantly telling me to let that right rein go and use the left one more to bring her over.  

After I was done, I realized that was something I should have known I had to resist.  It took me awhile to figure out with Shorty that the only role the inside rein plays is to ask for some bend, and that is it.  You can't use it to force the horse over, and you can't clench against it.  My trainer said afterwards that it's akin to picking a lock in terms of the feel, something I'll keep in mind for next time.

We made a lot of attempts at it, some better than others, with me fiddling around to figure it out.  It also didn't help that I didn't have my right and left hand figured out before then.  In the beginning, when my trainer was saying 'use your left rein' I wasn't sure what she meant because I wasn't sure which was my left or my right in the moment.  Not my trainer's fault, just something for me to keep in mind for next time.

Again, another thing for me to keep in mind is that Mariah needs to be straight in her body, not just bent, and that requires a balancing act from my aids.  She's now reached the point where this fiddling with her doesn't completely ruin her day.  Before, she would've thrown a fit at it, but now she tolerates it well, although too much of it would frustrate her.

After my turn, I think we may've walked around for a bit, and then I think that was the end of the ride.  Overall, it was fun and educational to fiddle with it and start to get the feel of haunches - in.  Lateral work is something that I want to do and learn more of, as it's a very useful tool to supple and strengthen a horse, as I found out with Shorty.  We only did a lot of leg yield, a lot of it imperfectly, yet over the months I believe it did make a difference for him.

Actual lesson 5/23/2023