March Goals - Review
1. Move to new facility (me and Katai) – I am so ready to move and get going with our new life of lessons and progress!
Nada. It was completely out of our control thanks to the horrible EHV-1 outbreak. Hopefully there will be no more cases.
2. Continue to take lessons (me) – I will be taking weekly lessons on the lessons horses available until I move Katai.
No, but pretty close and again out of my control. I missed one lesson last week due to a freak blizzard/loaner car that evening and this week I'm not able to because of this vacation.
3. Work on consistency (Katai) – This is a huge one! I have the rest of the month to work with Katai and based on this move I have changed some of my goals.
Yes!! So far any way. I haven't been able to test it at the new barn yet but I've been riding consistently and Katai had been improving in leaps and bounds. Her groundwork and patience have gotten that much better as well.
4. Strength (me and Katai)–
Yes! I've been riding more consistently and Katai feels stronger and wants to GO. I've also made it out running a few times with the nicer weather and have done a better job at doing core strengthening exercises in the evening. Riding is mostly (pony trots require A LOT of posting) feeling better and less tiring.
5. Desensitization (or whatever you’d like to call it) (Katai)– Katai is going to have fairly different things expected of her at the new place.
Pretty much. I haven't been able to test it out at the new place yet but we did a few days of trailer refresher classes as well as lots of clipper work. I was planning on not actually clipping her body this spring but now with the extra week and temps getting warmer by the day I think I am going to try to get her at least hunt clipped.
Now, after rehashing how the last month went, I think that I'm going to start doing what Tracy at Fly On Over does and set yearly goals with quarterly (or possibly even monthly) reviews. I tend to think more big picture and enjoy striving for more, big, long term goals over a longer period of time rather than breaking them down. With that being said I'm not going to go ahead and set them up now, instead, I'm going to wait until after my first lesson with J. I won't change long term goals based on one lesson but I will change and adjust goals based on what she says about the two of us based on what that is.
I am really nervous about how that first lesson will go. I am EXTREMELY proud of how much I have accomplished with training Katai. She is now a confident, strong, fun to ride, easygoing, forward, bold horse which was nowhere near the case when I got her and that's not even mentioning specific behaviors. However, I have never had a lesson on a horse that I trained completely on my own and it's been a REALLY long time since I had a lesson on one of my horses. Katai is my long term, forever horse that I've been looking for for so long so I WILL butt heads with J if she doesn't think she has any talent or if she tries to get me to sell her. I have seen nothing that would suggest that from the horses and riders that take lessons from her so far but I'm really a great worrier and with all this extra time to think about it I've had too much time to think of bad scenarios.
I have talked with J briefly about saddles and saddle fit and she is very opinionated (a good thing) and wants to talk to me and see Katai before I do any shopping. I know for certain that Katai's saddle is slightly too long for her back as well as too wide but without going custom I'm not sure how to find a better fit. I would be so extremely happy to hand that worry and stress off to an expert and just buy and ride in what I'm told. That could be said for a lot of things. I am really ready to hand over the reins (figuratively, not literally in this case) to someone who is an expert and not keep myself up at night researching things because I don't have an expert to ask.
I'm ready to stop being the trainer and just be the rider and yes, I realize there is still training involved ;)
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