Goals

I decided that I needed a place to write down my goals and progress with my horse. We ride at an eventing barn and will be competing in three phases, two phases, dressage, and jumping shows. So far we have competed in one show where we competed in dressage and got third place in Intro Test A and Intro Test B. I have had my mare, Willow, for a year and we've worked really hard on her training. She had very little training and was started late so she would walk and trot fairly easily but cantering was a mess if we could even get into it. With in a few months she was consistently walking and trotting on the bit, had gained a lot of muscle, and started to understand some lateral movements. We are working on the canter still. She doesn't have the confidence that she needs to be able to canter on the spot so she tries to run into or will buck. Occasionally she'll get some good transitions though. We are working with a new trainer who is doing wonders for her. 

I'm going to keep all of our goals relatively short term so they'll be things to accomplish within eight weeks. Here are the first goals that I want to accomplish:

1.) Canter transitions. We've gotten so much better at cantering and cantering when I ask but there are still moments when she runs into it so by the end of eight weeks I want are canter transitions to be spot on. 

2.) Cantering on the bit. She picked it up so easily at the trot that once she figures out cantering this should come pretty naturally for her. 

3.) Perfecting out leg yields in both directions. Part of this is me. She leads with her shoulders especially in her harder direction so I need to practice this more. 

4.) Transitions. I want our walk to trot transitions a little smoother. I also want a little more of a difference in the trot between collected, medium, and extended trot. 

5.) Enter into another show and score better. This is self explanatory. I have my scores form the last two tests that I did and while I don't care about my placement I do care about getting a better score. 

After all of our rides and her training rides that I get to see I will write a blog post about it. I will also write about how I plan on accomplishing my goals. The start of the eight weeks will be on Sunday, May 15.