New Year/New Plans: 2025 Goals

 After the few warm days, winter reasserted herself and the weather is back to being cold. I know lots of people love winter. I am not one of those people but I make the most of it. 

With riding being out of the question it seems like a good time to think about my horse goals for this year.  

Carmen:

1.  Maintain an even rhythm in all three gaits. And when we lose it, get it back within a stride or two. This will take a lot of focus and awareness on my part. I've gotten so used to her that I don't always notice when she shifts. 

2. improve our ability to adjust the length of stride within the gait while maintaining the rhythm. 

3. keep her attention on me and don't accept her giving me half-assed responses

4. Improve our turn on the haunches. She tends to step wide with her hind leg and my ability to feel this needs to improve. 

Cordelia doesn't mind the cold

Quaid

1.  have a more consistent canter, including the transition

2. decrease his separation anxiety when we're away and I take Carmen away. 

3.  improve his acceptance of contact. 

4. Be ready to show him at Training Level this year. 

Me: 

1. Use self-assessment instead of judgements to improve my riding/horsemanship. Emma referred to this in her last post and it really intrigued me so I looked into it. The basic concept is that assessment lets us look at things objectively while judging is labelling yourself based on a standard. An example would be, Carmen is a spooky horse, vs Carmen has difficulty focusing when not given direction.  

2. continue to improve my fitness level. I am enjoying the process and I can see a definite and positive impact on my riding. I actually signed up for a karate class so we'll see how that goes. 

3. Be consistent in taking lessons and riding. Not that I'm bad at this but I do waffle a lot about clinics. I'd like to take a couple dressage clinics. I'd also like to find some horsemanship/ Working Equitation or Obstacle clinics. 

4. Figure out how to show 2 horses and not be kill myself. I think this will come down to fitness and organisation. Possibly bribing others to help. Maybe with cupcakes. 

5.  Do some fun activities involving horses and horse people. 

6. organise my tack room. It needs a good clean out and re-organization. I keep procrastinating on this but there's really no excuse for it with the winter weather. 

These seem like good goals to start.  I'm rather excited for 2025. 

2025 here we come!