New Goals

As always, the start of a new week brings about a new slew of goals that I attempt to weave into my life and accomplish daily. There are only a few weeks left until the next horse show for Cool, and since the last show he's only been ridden 3 times. Oi vey!

This morning dawned early when the alarm went of at 4:30am. Time enough for me to get up, pack lunches for the bf and myself and send him off to work before defrosting some pork for dinner while getting myself dressed and ready for the day. The dogs need to be taken out, dinner needed to get put into the crock pot to slowly simmer and cook all day. By 5:30 I was in the car and headed to the barn to see Emmy and Cool, turn them out and clean their stalls quickly before work at 7:30. They had a quick turnout in the snowy outdoor ring while I picked stalls and then came back inside just in time for breakfast. Emmy's right hind leg was swollen last night (and still was this morning) and she has taken a huge chunk off of her hoof....I have no idea what that silly mare did this time, but I've been keeping it bandaged. The farrier will be here next Monday to cut the chunk of foot off and re-shoe her and Cool.

Work was from 7:30 to 3:30 and was fairly uneventful. Afterwards I stopped back at the barn on my way home and tacked up Cool for a quick ride. Chels was there riding her warmblood and, after lamenting about our lack of time spent in the saddle recently and our quickly dissipating riding skills, we set out a single pole in the arena and just practiced cantering over it and seeing our distances. I have a hard time finding a distance on Cool...I just can't quite find the right canter step yet for him. Chels had some trouble too...we are both so out of practice! Thursday we are going to meet up to ride again after work and practice some more.

Cool's right front ankle has been puffy lately as well. I had the vet out recently to look at his face (he fractured it...go figure.) and mentioned it to her and had her look at it. She said that the tendons all feel good and she thinks that its the joint capsule itself. She told me to keep riding him as long as he's sound, but I think that I might get some Surpass for the fetlock...I know he's not off, but I hate unclean legs! And swelling is a sign to me that something is stressing that joint and causing a problem...maybe not right now, but certainly it could be down the road.

So here are my new goals for the next few weeks:

- Pole work 3x a week
- Jumping twice a week
- Equitation work
- Getting Cool rounder and bent more correctly, especially to the left!
- Take photos/videos

Thats all for now!

Peace.Love.Ponies.

Goal Setting

Sunday night I finally sat down to renew my USEF/USHJA membership (seeing as how the new competition year begins...oh...TODAY) and while doing so, decided that now would be a pretty good time to set some showing and training goals for this year. This has always been a little hard for me to do because of the job I work in the summer. I'm an "A" Circuit groom for a hunter barn and therefore spend a lot of the summer traveling and not very much of it riding...last year while working the Cleveland show I had a days that went from 4am to midnight...4am-6 or 7pm at the horse show, then home ride 2-3 horses before dark (usually I was on them until long after dark...we have a single light on the back of the barn that makes a good 25 meter circle work able after dark) then clean them up, turn them out (nght turn out) and then clean 4 stalls. I usually got home around 11 or 11:30, ate, showered and went to bed only to do it all again the next day. Not that I'm complaining...I LOVE my job because I get to meet so many great people and work with so many great horses, plus I've learned a ton just by watching the horses go in the ring, but all of that plus traveling to away shows makes it hard to keep up with my own riding, training and showing goals. Since I pay for my horses myself and my parents decided to have 4 children who were pretty bright and therefore went to expensive private colleges, just paying for tuition is hard, which is another reason why I have to work as much as I can. In years past it's been a hard balance for me to find, but this year, I'm pretty determined to make it work.

After getting Johnny, I joined the Standardbred Pleasure Horse Organization of Ohio (SPHO Ohio) and started looking into some of their shows. Since I joined at the end of the year, most of the shows had already passed. I looked back into them this year when the new show list came out, and unfortunatly the closest one for me is over 2 hours away, so I picked one show (The Grand Circuit Classic) within the association that I might like to try and go to, one rated show locally that is my favorite (The Chagrin Valley Classic, better known formerly as the Cleveland horse show or the Merrill Lynch show) and one BIG HONKING goal that is really going to be a challenge, The Standardbred National Horse Show. I spent all night paging through the online prize list from last year, jotting down notes and numbers. There are a zillion divisions that I would want to enter but because the show is about 7 hours from here, I can probably only afford to show in one or two (I also figured that if I'm going to haul Johnny 7 hours I should also make it worth our time to go there...) because of the costs. I have no idea how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to start by setting aside tip money from every show that I work this summer and see where we end up come time for the National. If I can afford it, then were off!!

Goals for Johnny this year include:
 - Firmly establishing a right lead canter (which he suddenly seems to have remembered how to do...we've been getting it right away all week!)
- Improving both canters on the flat (stretching down and coming rounder) and to and away from jumps (holding a consistant rhythm)
- Further improvements to the trot (again, stretching down and lifting his back as well as establishing a more forward and reaching "hunter trot")
- Once all of the above is accomplished, competing over fences and staying in the canter for the whole coarse with simple changes if needed.

Goals for myself for this year are pretty much centered around IHSA shows for right now...there are a few position things that I would like to tweak as well:
- Making it to Regionals (already almost qualified!) and qualifying again for Zones
- Making it through Zones and qualifying for Nationals
- Winning at Nationals. I was 4th last year and this year I REALLY want to be champion or reserve...preferably champion! lol
I also want to work on some position things for myself to improve my rides:
- Landing better in the heel over fences...I've been working on it and its getting better
- Keeping the eyes up and looking to the next fence...this will in turn help my shoulder from getting ahead
- Riding FORWARD to decisions.

We will see how this all goes...riding class today (hopefully riding my little buddy Cruz again!) and then a lesson with Kris on Thursday where I will go over these goals with her :)

Til next time,

Peace.Love.Ponies.