I was assigned to ride Jack. I love riding Merlin but I miss riding the lesson horses. And if I don't get a chance to ride all different kinds of horses on a regular basis, I feel like I'm not learning all I could.
Jack is a cool dude, but I'm not sure I enjoy not riding Merlin so I can ride a bigger, heavier, slower draft cross, haha. I'm never one to say a horse is "too easy" for me, or that I've "mastered" that one. There's always something to learn, something to practice.
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| He's got a heart shaped boop on his snoot! |
The Lesson Rundown
Jack protests work. He has been kicking out a lot (don't worry we've medically tested all sorts of things, he just tries to intimidate) and I've also seen him shut down in front of fences with other riders quite a bit.
So my goals were to try to "beat him up" enough early on that I wouldn't have to fight him for speed so much, and maybe actually tone down the kicking because I've got him respecting me.
Holy cow this horse ignores leg like crazy. Such an exhausting ride! I did say I need to work on cardio for eventing, so hopefully all my huffing and puffing on this horse counts for something.
I do feel like we got fewer kick outs than I've seen with other riders. There was one place in particular that we turned down the centerline for a jump and the turn would shut him down and I needed more canter for the jump.
He wouldn't move forward from my leg or my voice so I often cropped him there. Which eventually he would kick there every time if I cropped him or not because he knew I wanted more in that spot. But he also gave me the canter I needed so a little kick out is fine.
We had a couple runouts on fences that were a big slice from center to edge of arena, but once we got over that everything went pretty well. We were definitely awkward distances to lots of things, and slow and short to lots of things, but we were getting the job done.
Thoughts
Somewhere in the ride I remember feeling not great about myself. This is a big horse and even though he doesn't stretch through his stride at all, due to size it's still a large motion to sit. The more we get weird distances and kick outs and generally unbalanced moments, the more I feel I am getting tossed around in the saddle.
I was never worried about falling off, I felt secure on the giant beast. But I was feeling bad because my position sucked. After jumps I would almost always have my feet pushed through the stirrups, my reins would be at least a foot too long, and I definitely wasn't sitting deep, ready to help him particularly.
My rational brain, however, knew I was having a good ride on Jack. We were periodically making small turns successfully. I was able to guide him on whatever path I needed. I was getting more canter, more responsiveness, and fewer kickouts than what Jack tends to offer on average.
Also the exercise was not one that asked for pretty equitation, strong control after the jumps or a ton of precision. The exercised was designed to get you to think and react quickly, get the job done, messy or not.
So why am I trying to measure my success based on my position?
It's definitely a mental flaw I need to work on. This time I was able to use logic brain to rewire emotion brain into feeling like we were doing well, but it's not always that easy.
To Do Items:
- Find a new measure of "am I doing well" besides position/equitation
- Figure out what I did to successfully rewire my emotion brain mid-ride because that was very cool and so helpful. Definitely useful to be able to do at will.
There was a moment somewhere in there where I tried to get Jack to move left by leaning in the air of the jump. I put all my weight in the left stirrup, shoulders and rib cage moved over to the left. It obviously didn't work, not that I expected it to. I know better than that.
Not sure why in that moment I "decided" to try it? But thanks Jack for not offing me because it would have been really easy to do. Hey brain, let's not repeat that, ok?
Observations
You can always learn lots from watching other people ride and hearing what the instructor tells them. I'm just going to list out what I remember seeing, with no real judgement or particular takeaways here.
Dragon
This rider fell twice, but slow, non-painful falls. Both came from refusals. While Dragon has a propensity for refusing sometimes, particularly on bigger jumps, he looked forward and honest in these cases.
It seemed very much like the rider worrying about him refusing is what actually caused the refusal. Riding is such a mental game. The rider did a good job of getting back on and getting the job done.
Toby
Unfortunately his ride was cut pretty short. He tripped in the back of the outdoor arena and launched his rider over the top of his head with the help of a tiny "why are you on my neck?" buck. The ground outside is not forgiving and I'm sure this rider must be feeling sore as heck today.
I know she was feeling discouraged and struggling to rewire her emotion brain as well. I wish I knew the secret not only to help myself but to help my friends. She didn't jump again (which is a very good choice) but did get back on the horse to walk around at the end. That's impressive to me. It's always good to get back on the horse and encouraged if safe, but that doesn't make it any easier to do.
I'm confident she will physically heal soon enough. I hope that her mental/emotional state can find happy confidence again soon. I know it's been a struggle for her, and I don't want that for this rider (or any really).
Rocky
This horse is green to jumping and the jumps at the end of the lesson where pretty high. Just getting him over them is an accomplishment and we were often slicing or getting weird distances.
This horse is so game and smart, it's fun to watch him grow. The rider made it look easy when I know it's not. Rocky was very inconsistent on if he was going to listen or take off on the other side of the jump, which I guess makes an added reflex/reaction time challenge for the rider. She handled him well.
Emma
I've never ridden this horse but she seemed like she was having a particularly mare-ish day. I'm guessing she often did the course immediately before or after me and didn't have to repeat too very much because I don't remember much of this ride. Whoops.
I know that the farthest slice end jumps were troublesome, as well as the starburst I think? The mare was getting fast at points and then shutting down for some jumps. Just altogether being inconsistent it seemed like.
The rider I could tell was frustrated with Emma's antics a bit. I would be too. That particular brand of frustration is so hard to deal with. She did a good job of channeling it into useful riding instead of anger.
I wish I was the kind of person who could laugh everything off and be cheerful and objective about such things, but that's still a skill I am growing.
Griffin
Like Emma, I don't remember a whole ton of this ride either. I know the big slice end jumps were trouble for this horse/rider too. Griffin doesn't stop hardly ever, but he will run out if the approach isn't great and/or he's worried about the jump.
It's a case of easy to say keep him straight, more outside leg, but hard to accomplish in the saddle. Griffin was also a bit of a rocket, I guess he was happy to be outside. This rider has been gone at school all semester. It's cool to see them come back and how much they've learned and grown while away.
Final Point of Interest
I've of course omitted names, but these riders will know who they are, and some local barn people will also be able to figure out who was riding who. I hope they won't mind that I've included my observations here.
It's honestly not meant as any kind of judgement and I would hope none of it would make you feel self-conscious or bad about yourself, that's not what I want at all. We should all feel accomplished, just by showing up, ready to learn, and getting it done.
But in the spirit of trying to make sure I didn't show anyone in a negative light, I made sure to include what the rider did well, because I wanted them to feel good if they are reading it, and I want to make sure strangers on the internet don't think badly on us.
I definitely am not this nice to myself. I would "observe" and pick apart everything that went wrong. I might acknowledge what went well in an attempt to be positive, but I think I very rarely attribute it to my own skill or attitude. I'm more likely to treat as just a thing that happened that was good.
And even more ironically, I'm having trouble filling out that sentence for myself even now. I feel good about how the ride went. So why can't I finish the sentence?
"This rider did a good job of...." ?
That's interesting. Another point for my to do list then.
- Learn how to talk nicely about yourself
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