Goals? What Goals?

The fun thing about dressage (I know, I'm already starting off like the beginning of a bad joke.) is that just when you're like, "Wow, we are so good at that movement! Never going to have to work on that again. ....so what do I do now?" That movement turns to shit again so you do have something to work on.

SO FUN!

remember when it was warm enough for naked ponies? all of a week ago?

I was chatting with Farrier yesterday morning as she was trimming a horse and I was getting Opie groomed and tacked up. She asked if I'd been riding much and I told her I hadn't really been on a regular schedule lately. She wanted to know why since I'm known for getting a lot of saddle time, and I didn't have a good answer. But I think there are a couple factors.

One is still that we did so fucking much this summer that it's been nice to bring it way back and mostly putter around. The vast majority of my riding has been on trails with a dressage school thrown in here or there. And it's been awesome. We've got a long winter ahead of us, and being able to get outside to ride before being locked in the indoor is a priority.

The other is it's only October and we've already crossed off all my goals for the year--and then some.

a couple weekends ago i hopped over the border into PA to visit riding bestie's
old horse with her, and we also got to visit all the ponies on the farm. i'll take both
this cuddly perch and the adorbs yearling beside him.

We've obviously still got a shit ton to work on. I don't want to be gallivanting around at Training level forever and would like to come out swinging for a full season at First by May. But my brain is stuck in 2018 limbo where I had a game plan laid out; that's what I was going to stick to, even if that means sticking to the exact same shit we've already conquered.

Well time to move on, brain. Tally forth to new dressage horizons and all that!

completely unstaged. i was caught in the act of pony giddiness. 

I wrote in my last dressage post about how the canter work for First is so easy yada yada. It was for that day, but in the spirit of dressage it went a bit off the rails in the next ride.

The up transitions were still shit, but the down transitions were significantly better. We could do the trot change of lead at X without falling on our faces--mostly because the depart back into the canter sent us into orbit with how high his front end rockets up, punctuated by his head in my face at the last second as he's all, "oh wow so elevated much unicorn must touch the sky with my horn."

Or something.

The lengthened work was also super. Where we ran into problems was coming back from the lengthening. He would either break, or fall down, or both, or just ignore me all together and continue his floating cavalry charge. But that gives me a good area of focus to work on when I don't want to put in a dressage school because I'm bored and have already crossed everything off my goals list.

a very hopeful puppy waiting to see if opie would share his
horseversary snackies with her

The leg yields in one direction suddenly became the most legit thing this horse can do, so now I need to get them as good going the other way. And he offered me the most beautiful lifted back transition into the sitting trot for the first time ever which means it's in there for me to get again.

The dressage journey is never ending. I need to keep that in mind instead of going on a mental hiatus because I'm too OCD to write down new goals until the new year.