2017 Goals Recap

We do have some talent for square halts

Review of Goals for 2017

Increase Blogging Again

I'd like to set the goal to post an average of 15 times per month. If I can do that I'll have at least 180 posts next year and that would feel good!

Nope but for the first part of the year I was doing pretty well. I also hit my 500th post which was awesome! I was averaging 15 posts per month through August and really up until I ended up stuck on the West Coast for two weeks. After that my progress and motivation took a real hit and I ended up averaging around 12 posts for month for the year.

We're also good at trotting sometimes

Buy a Trailer

Trailer EVERYWHERE

Nope! As previously mentioned buying a trailer in 2017 was taken off the list pretty early in the year (February I think) so unfortunately neither of these came true. I did do quite a bit of trailer loading practice in Jane's trailer though! We were also getting pretty close to having Katai self load. In addition, she was very decent to load and unload to and from the second two shows we did.

Getting better at center lines too

Ride in Another Dressage Clinic

No :(, I feel like this one is the most painful. I tried at least 4-5 times to get into a Susanne Winslade clinic but the one I could have attended and new about in advance ended up filling up and the other ones just happened to occur during times when I was traveling. There are other clinicians that I could ride with but Jane prefers that I ride with Susanne and we're making enough progress with Jane that I don't have a great reason to push to ride with a bunch of different clinicians. In the future (next few years) I'd really like to ride with Janet Foy when she's in town and potentially Jennifer Truett who is in town pretty often. I feel like I'd rather be a bit more confirmed at 2nd to ride with either one just to get the most out of the experience even though I know I could learn a lot from either person right now.

Very good at posing

2nd Level Goals

I have complete confidence that even if our progress hits a huge wall we'll be able to ride all of the 2nd level movements by the end of the year. Not sure that showing 2nd this year is a doable goal but I'd like to be completing all the movements at home even if they aren't all pretty.

Hmmm, pretty sure I took this one off the list at some point to but for the sake of argument, we are maybe 85% on this one at least in being able to do the movements. However, we aren't even close to being able to do them with 2nd level movement and true collection.

However, I started setting monthly goals this year and I really liked it! I plan to do the same for 2018 to help break down my yearly goals into more manageable chunks and to help monitor my progress or lack thereof. Some of those goals went really well overall and I figured I'd list them here since I'm really a glass half full sort of person.

Also good at fancy prancing

More Trailer Loading Practice: We've got a long way to go but we did make a lot of progress and had a much better experience at the second two shows we did this year than we'd had previously.
Practice Other Show Skills: I feel like we looked way more put together at our last show this year than we have previously. I even managed to put in braids that stayed in for the full show (now I just need to learn to get them out better)!
Practice Lateral Work: I'm getting so much better at this and better at practicing things that are ugly in general. Our Leg Yield has gotten considerably better and our SI has also improved a TON. We can sort of do HI as well but it's not as consistent and I struggle to maintain the bend especially going to the right.
Ride Longer: YES! We're finally getting more rides at 30+ minutes rather than 15+ minutes haha. I started using a timer to help and I'm still using that timer to keep me honest since my internal clock thinks we're done around 20-25 minutes in. I've even done quite a few rides recently that are closer to 45 minutes.
Practice Sitting Trot: YES! I'm far from nailing this consistently but I can get a good sitting trot for the majority of my rides even for my lesson. Before I was really lacking the skill and feel but now, recently, I'm lacking more the strength both from not riding as consistently and not working out as consistently

Good at moving like a bigger dressage horse
despite her diminutive 13.2 hand stature

So, while it looks like we pretty much failed at all of my big 2017 goals I feel like we had a decent year. Overall 2017 felt really tough to me and like I was constantly struggling to swim upstream. Mostly this had to do with things in my personal life such as work, relationships, budget, etc. but it wasn't all smooth sailing with Katai either. She's had much more attitude these past few months and, while I'm so happy with our show results, I was really hoping for more shows, clinics, trailering opportunities etc. so it was tough to STILL feel stuck with those things.

Good at giggling with an Oh Shit face while we
splash through/around puddles

Regarding our show results, while they were never a goal I was still SOOO impressed that we won three classes at two rated shows at both training and first level. Going into the show season this year I NEVER thought that we'd accomplish that so that alone makes this year feel like a HUGE success along with all of the other progress we made. Now, I just need to learn how to set better goals for next year ;)

The Hunter Pace

I had SUCH an amazing time at the hunter pace on Sunday!! It was easily the most fun I’ve had on a ride recently and I think Katai had a blast as well!

Goons in the trailer

I was with an amazing group which really helped. There were four of us total and our leader Jenny (trailerer) has done lots of trail rides, some hunter paces and hunts in the past as well as lots of trail riding. She was on a very tall draft/TB cross who was an amazing large gentleman that wasn’t spooky at all. Then there were three of us from my current barn me, Vanessa, and Allie. All three of us had younger, inexperienced horses and out of the group Katai actually had the most trail riding experience. Vanessa was riding her OTTB, Cat, who is off the track just since early this year (February I think?) and who has never been on a trail ride in her life. Allie was riding her young Quarter horse (I think), Sarge, who has just been ridden consistently since around May and who has also never been on a trail ride. I was, of course, riding Katai who has been on trail rides but never trailered off property for one and who admittedly become a screaming hormonal unicorn at our last experience off property.

My legs look so long in this picture!

I honestly wasn’t sure that I would even be able to get Katai on the trailer especially once I got a look at it. Jenny has a four horse head-to-head trailer and while I knew that the extra space would be welcome (the only trailer I’ve struggled to get Katai on so far is a straight load two horse) I also knew that the very steep ramps and maneuvering needed inside might be tough. Katai started off resistant but calm but as soon as Jenny opened up the second ramp and suggested that we just walk her through a few times Katai walked right through. From there it was easy to just stop her in the middle and back her into her space. We got her secured and easily loaded the other two. Yay for good baby horses!!!

We got on the road but pulled over for gas and to check on the horses about 15 minutes into the trip. I was extremely happy and impressed to see that Katai didn’t have a single bit of sweat on her, was eating her hay, and was perky eared. I can only imagine that she really liked being able to see the other three horses and that it was making her feel more confident.

Leading the pack

I was really pleased and feeling more confident about how she would do once we unloaded than I had. The trip was about an hour and then we pulled into a nice large field with several other trailers. We unloaded and were able to tie two horses to the trailer with their hay bags. The other two had to be held since the trailer just didn’t have enough tie rings. I opted to tie Katai and with her hay bag in front of her she was a perfect lady. She actually ate her hay and didn’t even call to the strange horses. I think it helped that it was very low key and not nearly as electric as her last show experience and, of course, being able to see her three buddies the whole time really helped as well. We all started getting tacked up and ready to ride. I got in the saddle a bit before some of the others and let Katai stretch her legs in the field a bit while everyone else got mounted up.

We left the gate at about 10:08am. I knew that a hunter pace was different than a hunt but I wasn’t exactly sure how it differed. First off, there aren’t hounds for the hunter pace and you don’t go out at the same time with a big group. Instead, you go out with as many or few riders and horses as you chose and try to meet an unidentified time over a specific course that was set by the person who, I believe, normally would lead the hunt. The group that put on this event does Hunts as well and I’ve actually been invited to the one at the end of August!!

What’s fun about the hunter pace is that it’s sort of like a really long cross country course with fewer jumps and no jump judges. You can chose to go at whatever pace you want but we were hoping for a ribbon (1st – 6th) so we went a bit faster than you might on just a normal trail ride. The whole ride (with trot, canter, and some gallop) ended up taking us about 1 hour and 38 minutes was just about 7.5 minutes off the pace and meant that we came in 4th!!!

Gorgeous satin!

It was SO MUCH FUN!!!

I had a great group since both Vanessa and Allie are eventers with young/green horses and this was their first experience. Both are bold riders and happy to push the pace a little but both also wanted to give their horses a great experience and didn’t have extremely fit horses. Both Vanessa and Allie took some jumps and neither Jenny or I took any. We all were in agreement about pace for the whole ride and were happy to walk or gallop as appropriate which made it fun. Amazingly enough with all the young horses, and especially with the lack of trail riding experience, none of the horses were spooky. The draft cross or Katai led through anything spooky for the most part but the OTTB led over two bridges!! She just walked right on and over very calm and composed and the others followed her over just as calmly. It was really pretty remarkable and I think that rider attitude had a lot to do with it since we were all happy, positive, calm, relaxed people that were out just to have fun. 

Allie’s young Quarter Horse was probably the most worried and spent the first half of the ride cantering and jigging but did really well and by the end was really happy and calm and comfortable for our longer sets of canter and gallop towards the end. All four horses were equally sweaty and none of them seemed especially tired out after the ride. I will say that I didn’t actually think the ride would be that long especially with the amount of canter and gallop that we did. It sounds like most of the time these rides are closer to 45 -60 minutes. 

 

Posing ;)

Knowing how long it was and how hard the horses worked, next time I’ll bring liniment and probably give Katai some electrolytes before the ride. Live and learn. At any rate it certainly wasn’t too much for her. She is routinely ridden for 45-60 minutes with a lot of trot and canter and is very fit cardio wise. It was just a lot more hillwork and canter/gallop than she was used to. With that said though, we still did a lot of walk and she was perky eared and bright eyed throughout and after the ride. She got a little bute last night and this morning with her grain to help fend off too much soreness and she’s getting today off, a very light lunge tomorrow just to stretch her out a little, and another day off Wednesday. Then, depending on how she’s feeling on Thursday we may just do an easy walk ride.

LtoR: Allie and Sarge, me and Katai, Vanessa and Cat, Jenny and Ollie

I was SOOOOO proud of her and how she handled everything. Multiple people complemented me on her about everything from her willing and sweet personality, to her ability to keep up with the others, to how fancy she is.  I still don’t think I can quite believe that she’s mine.