This lesson, both Vivie and Friend were there.  I was on Cordell, Friend on Mariah, and Vivie on Rugar, and we rode in the outdoor arena.

I mounted up and felt like my stirrups were too long for jumping, which I assumed we might be doing, so I shortened them up.  My trainer didn't give me anything to do right away, and so I assumed as well that she'd left me to do my own warm up.

I walked around some and stopped him several times.  He was real good about stopping promptly and not leaning against me.  So then I went on to running walk.

I wanted to keep him slow, but I also knew that if we were going to be jumping, that wouldn't do us any favors.  So I tried to get him going good and resist the temptation to grind my heels into him.  I did some circles and overall things went alright, my trainer said it looked good at one point.

After the running walk, she told me to have some canter on a circle with the goal being that he didn't fall to either side but stayed up straight.  If he did, I could take him on a smaller circle.  with Cordell, he was most likely going to fall to the inside, so I could have to step in my outside stirrup and turn my upper body to the inside to bring him over.  It's kinda hard to describe...

Anyhow, we did our circle and he did good.  It was a lot better than the last time we did canter circles.

We came to walk as my trainer looked over and said that our canter looked good. She said that was what we needed Cordell to do, to stand himself up in the turns to a jump, so that he was level to the ground and not at an angle when he tried to jump.

I wasn't sure if she wanted me to canter the other direction or not, so I walked for a bit before deciding to canter the other direction. I didn't canter as long, but it was good.

Then we walked around a bit more before my trainer asked me if I was ready. I told her I thought so and came over to her so she could outline what we were going to do.

She wanted me to come over the tire jump going south, and choose to go either right or left of the log standard jump. Then I was to make a left turn to come around to the log standard jump and jump it going west. Then, as I'd done last week, I was to make a right turn to come around and jump the tires again. 

Because I was on Cordell, I didn't have to worry about him being too fast but rather, too slow.  So I made sure he had a good running walk going. Our first round went really well, we got good lines and good jumps and I stayed back in my two point.

After that, my trainer had me go another time, but in canter.  I should've checked with my trainer as to how she'd want me to change leads, but I didn't.  

Thus, after the first jump, I was on the wrong lead and I was a little kerfluffled about what to do.  But nonetheless we came to running walk and picked up the canter on the correct lead before going to the second jump.

After the second jump, we needed to change leads again, and this time our transition was a lot better and smoother.  So we completed the course well.

My trainer said that when she told us to canter a course, it throws in the extra challenge of leads.  I'm not sure it she said it here, or some other time, but she said I was doing a good job of staying back and waiting for Cordell to jump.  With him, it's tempting to leap forward because you feel like he should've left the ground.  But you just need to wait for him.  She told me to keep up the staying back, to keep resisting the urge to throw myself forward.

After Friend did her rounds of jumping, I went again.  On the second jump, we kinda faltered in the canter, that is, I didn't keep him going enough.  After we jumped the third jump, my trainer had me come back to do the second jump in canter.  This time she told me to keeping pushing him through the turn.

So I pushed him through it and it kinda surprised him, so that jump was the best either, but better.  So we came around to try it again to see if we could find a happy medium for the canter, not too fast but still strong.

Sure enough, we got the canter my trainer was looking for and things went better.  So we called it good on that last jump.

That was pretty much it for me and Cordell.  We sat and watched Friend do her deal and Vivie did hers, then we dismounted and that was that.  Overall, it was a pretty good lesson on sweet Cordell.

Actual lesson 10/3/2023