- Ride at least twice a week at each barn. I've only been getting out to each barn once a week (if I'm lucky). Everyone knows good, reliable horses take lots of time and effort. So maybe I should make the effort to spend some time out at each barn at least twice a week instead of one. Of course, everyone would like to get to see their horse 4 or 5 times a week, but sometimes that isn't possible. I'll settle for just two times a week for now.
- Get Pete to the point that he can be jumped without the rider worrying that he's going to balk or completely disregard the signals the rider is sending. Right now, I can't even concentrate on my position because I'm so worried about keeping him in line and making sure he doesn't hurt himself or put the other riders and horses in the arena in danger.
- Become more confident in my riding. I tend to be the person who comes off as tough (at least to the horse) but gives in to the horse's persistence instead of toughing it out. I'd like to become more confident and be able to gently ask for what I want from my horse and then reinforce the 'asking' with 'telling' if need be. But I most definitely don't want to be the un-confident rider that backs down at the slightest threat.
- Work on ground lunging with Lucy. She's a bit rusty at it to say the least and since we can't do much with her, ground lunging is the best thing I can think of that would keep her semi-active and obedient yet keep her mind engaged at the same time. It's the least I can do for such an obedient and beautiful horse that is injured beyond repair.
- Work more with Missy. We haven't been doing very much work lately and I'd like to ride more, and especially do a lot of halter work. If possible, I want to do halter or showmanship in 4H with Missy. That, of course, takes practice, and practice is work. So, I want to work more with Missy both under saddle and in-hand.
- Work with Sonny on dressage more. We've started mastering the half pass, and piaffe, and a few other basic maneuvers like shoulder-yield and yielding the hindquarters, but I'd like to not only learn those, but master them as well. I want to be able to warm Sonny up and then get right down to work and avoid the annoying head-tossing and being distracting mindsets that Sonny gets into.
- Find something to do with Lucy's old bridle. It's a pretty decent black leather English bridle. I also have a 5" silver eggbutt snaffle bit that I bought for the bridle. It needs a little cleaning but I'm thinking I might be able to take it to Victory and find something to do with it. It's pretty large in size - Lucy has a humongous head - so it should fit most of the horses. I just need to find a horse that needs a bridle. Sigh.
Pretty decent list of goals, no? I think 7 is a nice, round (ok, it's more like two lines and not so round, but you get what I'm saying) list of goals that pretty much covers the areas I want them to. At least for March. What are your goals for March and the rest of Spring 2011?
2 comments:
Excellent list! I haven't given goals much thought, other than learning how to do a balanced lope....still working on that one. :-)
Wow, I don't know how you do it with all those ponies! Great list though, best of luck:)
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