Going Ons

I'm loving her new halter.
You can't really see it here but it actually has her show name on it!

Things have been happening over here peeps! I’m finally feeling like a real live human again so I’ve been getting back on track with pony things.

The new schedule has been super helpful although I haven’t been able to 100% stick to it yet. I have been doing the most intensive planned days though which has been huge. This past weekend I didn’t go do adventure day on Sunday but did go on Labor Day to “make up for it” so I’m proud of myself for that. I think that the only day I’ve really struggled with is spa day. If it’s nothing other than grooming I’m finding that my motivation just isn’t there so I think I may reschedule a bit or just move to the more intense schedule a bit sooner than planned.

Rides have been going really well! Unfortunately it’s been a looooooong time since I consistently rode even 2 days a week so we’ve both lost a lot of strength and fitness. I’m continuing to work on losing weight and gaining muscle out of the saddle though and with the plan I’ve put into place it seems like Katai is thriving off the work. She’s moving really well and we really did make some progress on random things over the summer even with the lack of work. Relaxation is a big one and she’s traveling much looser and longer from head to tail than she used to. This feels like a huge win for us.

Our second real work day ride was more about endurance than collection and so I added some time to our ride. Total work time under saddle (including walk warm up and cool down) had been right around 20 minutes. This past week we moved that up to 30 by increasing the walk and trot. I still haven’t cantered because now I realized that her saddle is too wide (loss of muscle) and so it is sliding forward badly at the canter. I need to bring my shim pads to the barn as a temporary solution but I keep forgetting. To make up for that and continue to add canter endurance I have been doing a fair amount of canter on the lunge.

Then on Monday’s make up Adventure Day I did some work in hand. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do on the way to the barn but figured I’d either do a low key ride around the barn or some in hand work. It ended up that, for some reason, I was having high anxiety and so was she. Often even if I’m having a high anxiety day when I get to the barn and she’s her normal calm self I can get my anxiousness down but on Monday she was also really anxious. With that I decided that, for multiple reasons, it made the most sense to do ground work.

The best thing about the situation on Monday was that with us both being high anxiety it was a good mini replication of what it would be like at a horse show. I decided to work her in hand around the trailers since that’s an issue typically. Somehow, magically, as I was working with her I ended up finding a tool to resolve a major issue I’ve always had with working her on the ground. For some reason something clicked with me that what’s tough about handling her on the ground is when she crosses in front of my driving line because then I lose the ability to effectively handle her. With that in mind I was holding the coiled up lunge in directly in front of my driving line (dead center in front of my body) and would flap it against the front of my legs if she got too close to crossing that invisible “wall”. This was seriously like a miracle and not only did she get it right away, she also stopped pulling and remained on the side I was trying to lead her on without a bunch of barging and pulling. It’s so simple that I can’t believe that it took me this long to figure it out. At least now we have one more way to effectively communicate with each other.

With that tool I worked on walking towards and away from the parked trailers since when we go to walk away from the trailer she always loses her marbles. Then we also went up to the wash stall and practiced standing in it. Both were productive and I continue to feel like our communication, trust bank, and relationship are improving in leaps and bounds which is paying dividends for everything I’m working on with her. The gains in relationship and trust are the biggest success for us this year and that’s a huge thing.

Intention - Blog Update #1

She looks somewhere between adorable and
possessed in this picture so of course I had to share

Well guys I certainly had no intention of taking that sort of break from blogging! I feel like this year was even a longer break than last year and last year I was dealing with some pretty serious seasonal depression. This year, very happily, the reason(s) I haven't been blogging are very happy for the most part.

Because there is just so much going on and a fair amount happening with Katai I figured I would do a couple of update posts rather than trying to fit it all in one and then be in a good place to recap 2017 and start 2018 strong!

So, to start the update, awhile ago I had mentioned three exciting things I had in the works that I couldn't share yet. One of those didn't really go anywhere yet but will soon and that's that I'll be moving early next year and was hoping to move much closer to the barn. I had started to look for apartments but realized that it was still so early that it didn't make sense to look.

First bath today <3

The second thing was my friends moving to the barn. As of end of October they're all moved in and things are setting back down there. I'm really enjoying having them there and luckily it's a great combination of having people around but still having the arena to myself on a fairly consistent basis. In fact, if I had my druthers I'd probably want them around a bit more than they are which is a good problem to have.Not only am I enjoying having them there but they're LOVING the barn and Jane's instruction. All three of them have said that they're enjoying riding again and loving the program and the setup of the barn. I'm really happy for them and glad that I could help them find a great place to move to.

The third thing is, of course, my new puppy Mashiara or Moshy for short. She is absolutely the best puppy in the entire world and I'm totally head over heels in love with her. Anyone who follows me on Instagram (and if you don't you should since I'm more able to quickly post there) has seen her in all of her adorable cuteness already.

I've LOVED every minute of having rescue dogs but they do come with baggage and I've always wanted a puppy at some point. I have no doubt that I'll mess some things up but it is nice to not need to deal with set in behavioral stuff right from the beginning. It's also AMAZING how quickly she picks things up! She already sits on cue, knows her name, and has a MUCH more reliable fetch than Veggie does. She's also good with stuff like nail clipping and bathes which I'm working hard to not mess up. I guess I sort of didn't think she'd be this trainable since Chihuahua's are typically fairly stubborn little dogs that weren't exactly bred for obedience but so far (knock on wood) she's been really easy to train. I've got her signed up for a puppy class already and now I'm also sort of thinking about continuing with a few basic obedience classes after that puppy class is done.

She's very helpful with Christmas preparations

Of course all of these things have distracted me from blogging and, as mentioned previously, Katai and I had gone through a rough patch and are just in an in-between sort of time with riding where she needs more strength and to change her way of going and those aren't quick things. Because of that I just didn't have as much to blog about which wasn't inspiring me to find the time to sit down and blog.

Contemplating what to do with a toy that large

I have one more thing that's been distracting me from blogging and that's a relationship. I'm not someone who's particularly private and I know I've shared relationship things, both good and bad, on here in the past but this time I'm keeping it more private. What's important is that I'm really happy right now and spending a lot of time with this person. I've been more focused on that and continuing to ride and manage a new puppy and still (STILL!) stressful work days that blogging just needed to take a back seat.

A little blurry but proof of how good the Vegetable has been.
I think this was her second day home.

I can't promise that it's going to get much better over the next few months but I do want to close out the year as strong as I can. I'll have another update soon about more of what Katai and I have been up to!

Relationships

When I read Emma's post and some of the responses to it I knew that I wanted to do a post about this. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot both from the perspective of what I need and how Katai matches that and from the perspective of what I would do differently “next time”.

However, I sat down to type this up and I struggled. I’ve drafted something at least 3-4 times now but it never really captured how I honestly feel about this and that is that Katai is perfect.

Sure I can wish and dream for something “better”, after all the grass is always greener, but ultimately Katai is the perfect horse for me which made this either the longest post or the shortest post. Instead I’ve decided to share a little about how I got here.

 When I chose Katai I was in a very different place. I had found early in life what my limit was and unfortunately ended up with a lot of fear thanks to my first horse. I had conquered maybe 70% of that fear by 2012 when I got my first pony as an adult. Myshla was an incredible pony who was calm, quiet, cute, cuddly, and nearly a perfect kids pony. The only issue is that she was very forward and hadn’t been very well trained so she wasn’t very responsive to halts or half halts which made her feel a bit like a run away. The fact that she was a run away in the body of a small pony/teddy bear made it fun for me to work with her instead of scary.

When I first got her I was finally putting aside peer pressure and getting what I wanted which was a pony. She was the first horse I had after Sora and Sora had taken me on a journey that was way off the beaten path. In many ways Myshla helped me find my way back to riding dressage but even though she did that for me I quickly realized that she wasn’t going to be comfortable as my dressage pony, it just wasn’t her thing and she wasn’t built for it. She was such a perfect kids pony that I decided to find her a home with a kid and find myself a different pony.

 Now (while I wouldn’t change this for the world since it would have meant not finding Katai) I maybe would have done things differently but it felt important to have a dressage pony prospect asap. So with my very tiny budget I started looking. I found Katai’s ad but kept convincing myself to skip over it. I’d had my fill of green horses with Sora and Katai was a bit shorter and possibly not as athletic as I wanted. Now I maybe would have kept Myshla for longer and saved up some additional funds but at that time I decided to go check out Katai.

That’s when something really weird happened, I went to see her and didn’t fall in love with her. I actually felt sort of meh about her and while her size felt better than I thought it would (she was at least a couple inches taller than Myshla) and I liked her brain she was also very resistant, scared, reluctant to be caught or handled, and pretty much feral. Even then I had a pretty good picture of my limits and I just wasn’t confident that I’d be able to successfully train her. I still bought her, or actually traded for her, and after one failure and multiple hours got her on the trailer and home where she proceeded to completely ignore all of the electric fencing and escape to the neighbors.

The first two years where really, really tough and I thought a lot about giving up. Ultimately what made me keep her was that there wasn’t going to be a market for a young, untrained pony and I still saw so much potential in her. My budget was still very low at that point so hiring a professional just wasn’t an option. Eventually I got through the worst of it and was able to move her to a dressage barn (with J) which felt like the right track. Now if I could go back and change anything it would just be to not ever bring her to that barn or take lessons on her with J. I learned from J but it caused issues with Katai that we’re still dealing with to this day. Things went backwards for a bit and then we started to make progress again.

Overall it was another 2 years of struggle before things really started to improve significantly with Jane (plus Katai hit that magical age of 8 which I’m sure helped). However, after 4.5 years of blood, sweat, and tears I can say that my pony is perfect for me.

She’s still tricky, she’s still very forward, still gets tense, still frustrates me, still has meltdowns about things that just shouldn’t be a big deal after 4.5 years but I adore her and she’s good for me. Even though I can think/dream about what’s next and I’m sure Katai won’t be my last pony, I also can’t imagine finding any horse or pony that I would enjoy more than I’m enjoying Katai. Plus, she's still more talented at this dressage thing than I am and I'm still learning from her so it doesn't make sense to look elsewhere even if I weren't completely in love with her.

She’s just the perfect mix of bold, funny, spicy, forward, lazy, powerful, intelligent, cute, naughty for me to have fun and feel challenged but not ever feel scared. She also doesn’t have huge movement that makes me feel like I need to spend tons of hours at the gym. I work out to be a better rider for her, but it’s not another full time job. I never climb on her and wonder if she’s going to be naughty but I’m also not bored when I ride and she always challenges me in a good way. I just can't imagine a better pony for me :)

Life Update

Trying to remember this on the daily

I also have a post about my lesson this week that I want to get typed up but I felt like I wanted to do this post first to catch up.

This has been a weird year for me in a couple of ways. The weather has been odd and it was a long, cold spring, then we had extreme (for us) heat. Now for the next 7-10 days it looks like our highs will be in the upper 60s with rain which is cold for us at this time of year. The weather has been so bipolar that it's tough to make plans or get in any sort of rhythm.

It's also been sort of a weird year for me personally. The weather certainly hasn't helped but on top of that I think I've felt a bit aimless. I've always had something like 7 big items on a list that I wanted to accomplish. For so long they felt so far away and I was constantly striving for them. Now I've got something like 5 of the seven checked off (and those are better than I imagined they'd be) but the two things left which haven't been prioritized to this point feel really important.

I'm struggling a bit with where to go from here since it feels like one of those things (a relationship) isn't something I can necessarily achieve with hard work and I suck at sitting back and letting things happen. It's also been really tough to still be alone and I've been struggling a lot with it recently especially as more of my friends fall off the map as they get more involved with kids and their spouses and have less time for doing things with friends.

The other thing is moving away from MN and it's always felt weirdly dependent on the relationship being accomplished first. Not sure why, maybe I want to have that support person before I leave home or maybe it's that it would be a lot easier financially. Either way, while I have a plan to accomplish this it's still a bit further out and the only thing I can do now is prioritize paying debt and figure out where I'll want to look for jobs when/if I decide to take action on my plan.

Both exciting and sad to think of leaving
this beautiful, green paradise.

Other little things have put me in a weird place as well. I love my job so much that I can't imagine leaving it to move (and yet don't want to spend the rest of my life living in MN), same with Jane and my current barn. However, Jane is going to likely be retiring from boarding at some time in the near future and while I hope she'd still teach lessons that's a bit up in the air. She's allowing some of her things (like her truck) to come to the end of their life and so while it's amazing that she's willing to trailer me places for shows I'm also really sensitive to the fact that every mile she trailers me is a mile she can't trailer her own horse to a clinic. I prioritized paying bills this year over buying a trailer but now I'm sort of in a place where I feel stuck and can't do as much as I'd like.

I was really looking forward to trailering to shows with my fellow boarder, K, but now very sadly and a bit suddenly she's needing to make a tough decision about retiring her horse. It's not my story to tell and I don't want to share the details but it's tough on everyone at the barn especially since her mare is the nicest, sweetest thing on the face of the earth. At the very least there isn't much hope or any plans for her to show with her again.

I'm certainly not posting this to complain, mainly it's a post about how everything is going so well (other than feeling a bit lonely haha) that I'm just feeling a little lost without all of my goals and wants. Also, things with Katai are going great! I'm slowly improving my riding and Katai is continuing to be more ridable. I can't believe the difference in her quiet, sweet, well behaved attitude recently. She tries so hard every. single. ride. and I never wonder what I'm going to get when I show up at the barn.

I'm also continuing to get healthier and fitter and still really loving being vegan. My job is great and I have a really fun (they aren't always but this one will be!) work trip at the end of July for a week that I'm looking forward to. I'm SO excited about going to Pony Cup again this year and can't believe that I'll be flying out two weeks from tomorrow. I'm also rapidly paying off debt and still managed a (well deserved) small shopping binge for things that I'd told myself I could get after my first successful show with Katai. I can't wait to get that stuff and will share it in a post soon!

Overall it's all so good but I've just been struggling a bit recently and since it's been reflected in how I feel about my rides and lessons and how much I'm blogging I figured I'd share.

Another One: Lesson Recap 1/26

Not sure if I mentioned it in this blog but Katai completely
destroyed the tail flap on her blanket.
I got it fixed but it isn't pretty if you look close haha

I have a second lesson recap for you this week but his time it wasn't my lesson but my friend H's! I've talked a little about H and having her watch my lesson here and now it was my turn to go to her barn and watch her lesson. I was also really excited about meeting at least a few of the GRPs that her instructor recently bought.

I picked up my new Hufglocken boots on the way there and will be posting a review very soon! I also discovered that with my new living location, where I'm about 31 minutes from Katai, I'm actually only about 32 minutes from H's barn. The distance to that side of the cities has been at least one deterrent for me about boarding there (along with the very high price) so with that out of the way I was curious how I'd feel once I was there and how I would feel about H's lesson.

I had left work a bit early to get there and so I stopped by Chipotle and got a vegan burrito salad which was delicious and which I ate while H tacked up her pony. We talked a lot about how she's been and also about her watching Veggie for me soon since I may be losing a roommate and then it was time for her lesson.

I walked over to the seating area and watched her warming up. I always learn so much from watching other riders and was really interested to see how much lateral work she did at the walk to warm up. I ended up already incorporating that in my ride on Friday and it worked great. Then her instructor showed up and she started at the trot.

Her instructor had her start off with some 20 meter circles and changes of direction. Her pony was tight through the back and wanting to keep his neck up and short/stiff rather than reach forward and work through his back. Her instructor also thought he maybe had a bit of a painful belly since he had more gas than normal.  It was one of those lessons where I feel like H never really got him where she wanted him, he was resistant the whole time, and never really bent when going to the right. I felt for her because her pony and Katai are very similar in their resistances and I've certainly had my share of lessons like this.

A few things I took away:

-Despite not feeling like I have as many opportunities as H I'm working an many of the same things. Not with as much knowledge or technique but it feels good to know that we both have our own struggles with shoulder in for example.
-I actually wasn't as wowed (seriously been hero worshiping him for the past year or so) by her instructor as I have been. This is the first lesson I've watched since I've started lessons with Jane and while he is an incredibly wonderful and successful instructor as I've said before, Jane is who I need right now and is much more effective with me and Katai than I think this person would be (all based on a guess of course since I haven't ridden with him).
-I'd really like to take a lesson with him now that I've started with Jane because after seeing this lesson with H I don't think I'd be wasting his time or feel as intimidated as I would have last year.
-I'd also really like to ride with Janet Foy if I ever get the chance. H rode with her and I'm close enough that again, I don't think I'd be wasting Janet's time.
-Dressage is hard and even when you get to a point where you might be thinking of moving to 2nd level, you may still have days where you struggle to get your horse on the contact and/or with doing a correct shoulder in.

-The importance of having a great horse/rider relationship can't be understated. I could tell that H was getting really frustrated at times and her instructor mentioned it as well. Last year I would have been in the same place. She handled it well but it did create more tension and I really think that it's what caused Katai to be so unridable up until this past few months. It was a good reminder not to go back there.
-It was also a good reminder of why it's good that I just have Katai. H has been able to ride all these amazing school masters and naturally talented riding ponies which would certainly make my fuse for my own pony much shorter

After H's lesson I stuck around and met one of the sport ponies. She's a 5 year old with about a year of professional training but was just transported up to MN from FL about 1 week ago so they just did some trot with changes of direction. She was gorgeous, such a nice little mover, and just completely in your pocket. I still like my little girl more though which always makes me happy :)

I just love her, even when she's makes faces like this

All the Changes

Just a quick catch up post for today!

So, I had mentioned that I had something exciting going on and that is that I'm officially dating someone. He's completely amazing :-) Seriously the best guy I've ever met much less had the honor to be in a relationship with.

I'm clearly spending lots of time with him but he also really supports my riding/horse time and tonight I was extremely happy to have him at the barn with me. He grabbed one quick phone picture and even though the lighting just isn't that good at the barn I think I can see improvement in both me and Katai. Best thing is that he doesn't know what he's looking for so this is a completely random picture, not the one great moment that we had or something!

We're improving I think!! 

It was amazing to have him there and he was very patient as I went through my routine and even walked with us while I cooled her out. I can't quite believe that I got this lucky.

Couples Therapy: Stubborn Together Blog Hop

I’ve had this idea for the past couple of weeks but finally decided that I was curious enough to make it into a blog hop.

Basically, I’m curious what role your trainer/instructor plays in the partnership between you and your horse. I’m not talking about unicorns and the Black Stallion here, just good common sense instruction on how you work with and ride your horse beyond the technical aspects of dressage. Is it something they feel strongly about either way or something that they just don’t work with at all?

My experiences have been very interestingly different. When I started with J (not Jane, past instructor who I dislike) I was surprised at the amount of animosity that she approached riding and coaching with. Anytime the horse wasn’t immediately doing what the rider asked it was “giving them the middle hoof” and was being uncompliant. She used a lot of force and even when I would specifically tell her that I thought something was just physically or mentally tough for Katai or that Katai didn’t understand something she would brush it off and say that my pony did understand and just wasn’t listening.

Then I worked with L who had very similar feelings about that relationship/partnership that I do. At first she made a big impact because I was coming from J’s antagonistic approach but ultimately both L and I were kind and fair but removed from really engaging in that partnership. Both of us have lost animals, and in her case people, that we were very close to and I think it made it tougher for us to really connect and come at this topic from a loving place. Instead it was more of a kind, fair, but casual sort of feeling which is how I’d initially worked with Katai and my past horses.

Now with Jane that’s completely different. She is working a lot with me on the technical pieces but I feel like some of the work she’s doing with me that’s had the biggest impact is on my partnership with Katai and how I function in that partnership. Jane has been doing this for a long time and owned and trained a lot of horses but it doesn’t feel like she treats this like her job. While she’s extremely professional about it, she also acts more like a coach, or as my friend says about her instructor, she’s my Yoda. Everything from the terms that she uses, to the way that she teaches and how she expects me to make changes with Katai is different and I’m learning so much. She uses terms like “hug” when she refers to leg contact, or tells me to take time to get her flexed correctly on the side where it’s tougher for Katai. She also LOVES mares which is nice since I also love them but I’m realizing that I don’t always know the best way to train/ride them.

I can’t believe how much this has all impacted Katai and the way she is to ride. She’s gone from tense and dramatic to loose, stretchy, relaxed and thinking in the time between when I ended with J and now but the biggest change has been in the past month. It’s been an interesting and amazing journey and I can’t wait to see where we are in the next couple of years!

So, how does your current (or past) trainer manage the partnership/relationship between you and your horse(s)?

My Bestie

Easter Coffee, yes this is actually coffee that I bought on Saturday from my local, vegan coffee shop

I went out to see Katai on Easter Sunday morning. It wasn’t necessary because I was that dedicated, more because I hadn’t been able to make it on Saturday and wanted to make sure to check on her owie. However, the barn time turned out to be the best part of my day. It was quiet at the barn and Katai was her new normal, sensible self in the barn even though she was in there by herself.

Her wound is looking almost completely healed. The compresses hopefully helped with expelling whatever was stuck under her skin there and now all that’s left is a small pink spot with a clear small hole in the center. On Sunday it was still covered in crystalized gunk and had clearly been trying to expel something and since the swelling is completely gone and it doesn’t seem tender anymore I think it succeeded J I put a little antibiotic gunk on it just to be sure there’s no infection and that it’s able to heal up cleanly and then I got her boots and bridle on so that I could lunge.

The barn I board at is so beautiful and my pony has one of the nicest spots

I had been planning to hop on bareback but when I pulled her out of the pasture she was bucking and racing and bouncing so I had decided not to. However, she lunged (as usual) so calmly and was so keyed in to what I was asking that I decided to try it anyway. I’ve been on her bareback maybe 3-4 times in her entire life and only ever rode her at the walk. I also used to be really good at riding bareback since I did that a lot when I was growing up. Now that’s not the case and the only recent time I climbed on her bareback I felt tippy and insecure.

I rode her around at the walk a little and tried to re-balance myself and find that consistent center. At some point she was being such a good and obliging girl that I decided it would be a shame to not try some trot. She actually had a great transition and then really pushed forward from behind into a nice, big girl trot. She had pinned ears because I was all over the place and had to hold her mane to keep from balancing on her mouth but she didn’t try anything silly. She did a nice 20 meter circle for me and after a couple of circles I called it quits before I made her sore.

Not Katai's hair but it could have been this weekend! Pony was shedding

She got handfuls of treats for babysitting me and being so sane and because it was Easter and then I turned her out again. When I let her loose she immediately started bouncing and bucking again. I think that the barn staff wonder how I survive sometimes and they’re always telling me how crazy she is in turnout. I’m glad that she takes advantage of it actually, she should go out there and bounce around and burn off steam. She’s very careful with herself so I’m not worried about injury and it’s good for her body and her mind to be able to play and bounce like that. It also makes me exceptionally proud that she doesn’t try that stuff under saddle.

I can’t believe that only about a year and a half ago I was thinking about listing Katai for sale. Our partnership has come such a long way and now we are actually working as a team and seem to have more mutual respect for each other. It’s been a real shift for me to start thinking of her as a more accomplished and capable athlete rather than a baby horse in training but we’re finally getting there. Her ability to just go to work and leave the silliness behind is amazing to me as is her lack of spookiness. There are still people at this new barn (which is new to everyone) that can’t get their horses to the far end of the arena. I’ve been in their shoes many times with different horses so I’m not trying to imply that they’re doing anything wrong. It’s just helped me realize that I get to have so much fun riding (since I’m not an adrenaline junky ;-) because I don’t have a spooky horse and we’re able to make so much progress because I don’t have to also deal with desensitizing. It’s one of the big reasons why I will now always own ponies. Don’t get me wrong, we each have our thing and I certainly know that not everyone wants to give up amazing movement, or size, or breeding, or many of the other things that go into each person’s favorite horse. I’m just happy that I’m finally grown up enough to recognize what that thing is for me.

The Challenge of Goals

Tell me about a challenge you set for yourself and accomplished, or set yourself a new challenge and keep us updated!

 

 

I’ve honestly been avoiding this blog hop like the plague. I have issues setting goals, not that I don’t do it or won’t do it but that I’ve learned that I can’t and although that frustrates my type A personality it’s just better this way. I’m a perfectionist and have some OCD tendencies. When I set a goal I do anything to meet it and in the past that has included things like ruining friendships or hurting myself. Because of that I’ve learned to not set big, specific goals. When I was a cellist I pushed myself so hard that at one point I was having up to 3 stress headaches/migraines per week and I developed tendonitis and a shoulder injury, both of which still bother me. It took me almost a year to let that go. Then when I was looking for my current job I had set a goal about when I needed to find something (I beat it by a few months) and again, multiple stress headaches/migraines, two colds, and some weight loss but I met my goal. Riding Dressage is what I do for fun, it’s what I do to get away from the world and to escape some of my perfectionism. I come from a long line of obsessive people, I have multiple relatives (including my mom and sister) that have struggled with eating disorders. I have a different sister who is a professional musician (already successful at a young age in an incredibly competitive career) that has so many injuries that I don’t know how she’s going to be able to continue to retirement. It’s a daily struggle for me to not bring that to my riding.

It is really tough for me not to be able to set goals and succeed but I’ve figured out a workaround. My yearly goals are a good example of this. I set small goals that will slowly work me towards a bigger goal but I don’t get down to specifics and I don’t set dates. Both are extremely important for most goals but so far I have been circling my big goal (and sort of stalking it :-) ). My goal is to keep wearing it down and eventually go in for the kill when I’m pretty much there so that my risk of hurting something/ruining something/breaking myself is at a minimum.

My big goal right now is a Bronze Medal on my pony.

My even bigger goal that I’ve never even mentioned on this blog is to get that accomplished early enough in Katai’s life that we could actually take the next step and start on a Silver Medal but that’s getting ahead of myself.

Regarding the Bronze I obviously haven’t talked about it much on this blog and I haven’t, and won’t set any specific goals or dates about it since based on past events I know that the likelihood of hurting Katai or myself or ruining our relationship over it is just too high. However I have, and will continue, to set small goals that head me in the correct direction.

Things like finding transportation to shows, showing in at least one clinic still this year, continuing to improve me and Katai’s relationship, and continuing to take weekly dressage lessons. They’re small, maybe insignificant seeming, goals but since I’m still aware of where I’d like to be they’ve been working to head me in the right direction over the past couple of years. I mean we went from this

To this

To this

In almost exactly three years which I feel like is a huge success especially without a consistent trainer and on a disaster (said with love) of a pony that I trained myself. So far, in that time frame, I’ve checked off the following list.

Find a good dressage instructor, get Katai used to clippers, get Katai used to trailering, get Katai to go forward off aids, get Katai to accept saddle and bridle, get Katai to accept cross ties, get Katai to pick up all four feet, be able to lead said pony, condition pony, get rid of underneck muscle, teach pony to lunge, get pony out on trail rides, find a place to board with dressage instructor, make sure you can blanket pony, make sure I can fly spray pony, teach pony to wear a fly mask, teach pony to tie to trailer, get pony to stop running me over, get pony used to stall, teach pony to stand still at mounting block, teach pony to wear bit, teach pony to steer, teach pony about leg cues, teach pony about contact, teach pony to stop, teach pony to stop off seat, teach pony about indoor arenas, teach pony to accept treats nicely, get pony to stand for farrier, get pony to stand for vet, teach pony about hoses, teach pony about wash stalls, teach pony about ground poles, teach pony about bridges, teach pony to ride, make sure other people can handle pony, teach pony to not freak out when friend leaves, improve relationship, teach pony to be caught, teach pony not to pull back when tied, teach pony not to rear, teach pony to walk, teach pony to trot, teach pony to canter, teach pony not to counter bend, teach pony to slow down (still in progress :-) ) and of course many more that I can’t think of right now.

So I think that my goal, for this blog hop, is actually to continue down the path I’m on and not set any one big specific goal but to continue to keep riding fun and relaxed and build that relationship with my wonderful pony :-)

‘Know thyself" - Socrates