Well it's the year of the hors...so it makes sense to have my New Years Resolutions revolve around my equine friend. Here are my goals for this coming year...should I tell Dani or not?
1) Ride more!!!! As the weather gets nicer and not dark when arriving at the barn I should ride at least twice during the week and once on the weekends.....at least that is. If I do more then great!
2) Do more groundwork. If I can do some groundwork while it's dark I should, I have the set up for it!! At least 2 times a week do groundwork with new exercises introduced regularly. Mainly work on Clinton Anderson stuff but work on the bitting rig of Julie Goodnight. Also, desensitizing to everything I can imagine!
3) Become better at mounting and get Dani more consistent with standing quietly for mounting.
4) Get a horse trailer. Nothing prevents me from doing what I want more than not having a trailer....except....
5) Get Dani to be a better loader. My goal is to get Dani to load on the first try, not panic or back out and when asked she should back out nice and slow.
6) Participate in several trail rides this summer...including the one overnight ride that KCRC does!!
7) Continue to work on trotting and feeling comfortable riding Dani at that gait.
8) Begin working on the canter.
9) Participate on horseback in at least one KCRC event whether it's a Gymkana or EXCA....just to get a taste!
10) Learn to open a gate perfectly from horseback....which means coordination for me and my horse!
11) Get my horse to accept gentle washing...even of her face!
12) Kind of a stretch....buy Steve a beginner horse (or better yet find a nice free horse!)
13) Lastly....a little bit of a pipe dream....buy horse property!!!
Happy New Years!
1 comment:
For mounting, watch Clinton Anderson's video on youtube. What I do when I mount (Red used to give me AWFUL trouble) is just back them up when they move. They start getting ahead of us. See, when you mount, then walk off quickly, they start thinking "Okay, so she wants me to walk, what if I do it before she's properly seated?" then they may even start being hard to catch. When you mount, spend a good 5 minutes just flexing Dani's neck back and forth, sitting, and baiting her to make a mistake. When she does, back her up and flex. A great thing to do is go out, tack up, mount, work on it, get off and untack without even riding. Then, maybe later that day after you groom her, get back on and ride. :)
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