2023 Goals... let's hear them

[2bayboys]

Horse 1
9yo OTTB mare that weaned a foal in October 2022. Get her rocking around a 2’6” hunter course and moving up to 3’ by the end of the season. Learn how to best ride her DON’T TOUCH MY FACE preference.

Horse 2
7 yo OTTB that’s been sitting in a field for two years. Install good flatwork and start over fences. Gain his trust and unlock all the stiffness and defensive points in his body.

Horse 3
Young fancy warmblood that’s been mysteriously broken for over a year. After exhausting all reasonable veterinary options in 2022, turn him out with a retired buddy for a year and pray for healing.

[Sing_Mia_Song]

My goals are fairly modest.

1. Leg up horse #1 slowly and surely after a summer of ulcers and weird never-fully-diagnosed lameness (he had the million dollar work-up with a diagnosis along the lines of “try bute for a week and see if it helps” [shrug]).

2. Horse #2 is enjoying the winter off after three years as a racehorse. I also want to start him back slowly with lots of hacking out with an eye toward a foxhunting career. Hoping to go third or mayyybe second field next fall.

3. Move more. Eat less.

4. Have fun!

[Grey_Dove032016]

These are fun! I’ll have to try to revisit this in January 2024.

Horse goals:

1. Continue working on rollbacks/tighter turns (both directions!) with my dinosaur of a horse
2. Continue practicing balancing said dinosaur on his hind end and lightening his front end to avoid freight training (see image )
   
3. Show consistently in adult eq
4. TROT.JUMPS.
5. Show in some jumper classes

[onlyTBmares]

I’m working on making goals more concrete and less nebulous.

Riding goals:

1. Attend my first rated show and not cry or fall off
2. Gain confidence jumping bigger jumps (for me, that’s at 3’ or bigger)
3. Ride in a clinic at a height that scares me and also not fall off or cry
4. Prioritize joy in the saddle over results -hard to measure but I’m thinking about journaling to improve this

Personal life:

1. Start my day every day with water, stretching and sun lamp (why is it so hard to freaking drink water that I will literally die without???)
2. Eliminate TV during the workweek
3. Bring creating art back into my life
4. Purchase a piano and take at least one piano lesson

[JBCool]

BUT what a handsome dinosaur!!!

[Grey_Dove032016]

Well thanks! He’s a super cool horse- we spent last year (our first year together) just getting to know each other, so I’m hoping we can reach some competitive goals this year!

[JBCool]

I totally get it. I sold my tough 15.3H horse of 6 years last spring and started leasing a 17+H superstar. Yep, we jumped crossrails until he was about to revolt from embarassment of it because of the culture shock (to me). None of the buttons worked like I thought they would and there were so many more of them!!! Now that we are much more comfortable together, I am just hoping to ENJOY doing our thing this year.

ETA, your guy reminds me of one we used to have at the barn (also a dinosaur, like 17.3ish? plus long as the Titanic). He was such a special guy and taught SO MANY students from his original 3’6" junior down to w/t lessons at the end. He just LOVED teaching!

[Grey_Dove032016]

I love that! I can totally see him teaching littles when he’s older- he’s got the absolute best temperament and is such a teddy bear on the ground. I don’t know that anyone would be willing to put a walk trotter on him though, regardless of age- he’s 18+hh! He’s also 7, so he definitely has his exuberant “airs above ground” moments that I just laugh at but would probably scar less confident/experienced riders We’ll leave the walk/trot lessons for future decade.

[JBCool]

Oh, ours was darn close to that size! We always said it made it harder to fall off bc there was always a part of him under you.

[ZuzusPetals]

I really like him. Because of my height I need horses of that size – so big that at any one moment they’re in two ZIP codes.