Looking Ahead

 The end of December and early January felt like we were in a bit of a holding pattern. Cinder made it obvious she needed a chiro appointment, but due to emergencies for our vet popping up either the day before or the day of all of her appointments, it kept getting pushed back. We kept riding, just doing light stretchy rides until one lesson two weeks ago when she absolutely COULD NOT canter left without feeling like she was going to launch me into the rafters. Thankfully Doc was able to work on her the next day and she feels so much better now. 

While this never happened under saddle, it felt like it could

Trainer M is super organized and has sent out the tentative 2025 show schedule as well as having a show team meeting day in a couple weeks where she spends 20mins with each of us to go over our goals and which shows we want to go to. So obviously I'm looking at our goals and what shows I can afford to go to, which ones I can kinda maybe scrimp and save to go to, and what I would do if I win the lottery. You know, normal equestrian things. 

For the second year in a row Cinder and I were third place in the OHJA Local System Long Stirrup Hunters. Still waiting for a few other year end awards to come in (ahem USHJA Outreach) for a full post

So, here's our tentative 2025 show plans: 

•  Start off in the 2'3" and move up to the 2'6" hunters and eq
• Qualify and compete in the OHJA 2'6' mini medal finals
• Maybe do the  2'6" jr/am derby at one of the local rated shows
• Do one or two rated shows this year
• Possibly go up to TBird in May or July?????
• Big wild goal: Qualify for the USHJA Adult Hunter Finals 
• Even bigger wilder I need to win the lottery goal: Go to Thermal for the Adult Hunter Finals

2017 Q2 Goals Review and Q3 Goals

Better late than never, right?  For the most part we knocked some of these goals out of the park.  There are a few still left to work on.

Peebs:

• Right lead canter.  It'd be nice to not go running up the long side counter bent with his head in the air. Done!!  I've learned that whenever we start having issues with his right canter, he's out and needs to see the chiro.
• If above goes well, start cantering fences to the right. DONE! Not only did we canter fences to the right, we cantered entire courses, at shows and won!
• Keep working on counter canter.  Be able to pick up the right lead tracking left. We've worked on counter canter, but haven't been able to pick up the right lead going left.
• More lateral work  Done, but we can always do more!
• Stay happy, healthy, sane, and sound We had a couple weeks of crazy Peebers, but I'm learning that him being spooky is a sign he's out and needs the chiro. Other than that, he's great!

Me:

• Awareness of my outside rein...don't forget about it! I can actually carry contact in both reins, at the same time.  I'm sure this will always be something I need to remember tho.
• More ground pole work so I can work on my eye and seeing a distance. We've done at least once a week ground pole days and it's really helped.
• More no stirrup work  Big  fat fail

For Q3

Peebs:

• Keep working on counter canter and picking up the right lead tracking left.
• Start working on flying changes
• Now that the fields have been harvested, field rides once a week!
• Stay happy, healthy, sane, and sound!

Me:

• No stirrup work
• Get comfortable with bigger fences and oxers
•  Work on my fitness and stamina so I'm not exhausted after shows

2017 Q1 Goals Review and Q2 Goals

I think the goals I set for the first part of the year were good, but we didn't get everything.  Oh well, they'll stay on our goal list and hopefully I can figure out a plan of attack.

The Peebs:

• Continue canter work, especially to the right  We do work on counter canter, maybe once a week or so.  Peebs hates it with a fiery passion
• Flying changes  Didn't happen, except that one time he offered one in front on his own then freaked out about crossfiring and panicked.
• More lateral work   Lots of leg yielding, SI, and started on HI
• Figure out how to stop rushing the fence going right up the long side of the ring.  HAHAHA nope!
• Stay happy, healthy, sane, and sound  Check!

Me:

• More work cantering fences without feeling like I'm going to die  I give this one a 50%.  To the left I'm completely fine.  Somedays we can't even canter to the right without loosing it, let alone canter a fence to the right.
• Work on relaxing my hands and elbows  Again, a 50%.  I need to be more aware of my outside rein, but I'd say I'm not locking my elbows as much.
• More no stirrup work  I did some, but not enough that I consider the goal checked off

For Q2 here are our goals:

Peebs:

• Right lead canter.  It'd be nice to not go running up the long side counter bent with his head in the air.
• If above goes well, start cantering fences to the right.
• Keep working on counter canter.  Be able to pick up the right lead tracking left.
• More lateral work
• Stay happy, healthy, sane, and sound

Me:

• Awareness of my outside rein...don't forget about it!
• More ground pole work so I can work on my eye and seeing a distance.
• More no stirrup work

Second Half 2016 Goals and 2017 Goals

Since it's almost the end of the year I figured its time for our goals check in. For the second half of 2016 these were our goals:

The Peebs:

• Work on ear clipping/mane pulling/ear handling Kinda sorta happened.  Had to resort to a twitch
• Lunge 1x week in vienna reins Done, and will continue to do!
• Canter transitions  Felt like a lot of time was spent in the past few months on our canter work
• Start working on flying changes Didn't do, except that he's offering changes more on his own over poles and fences.
• Field rides once a week when the fields open up  We rode in the field at least twice a week.  Usually at the end of our ride to cool down but also a few lazy day rides as well.

Me:

• Get comfortable over fences Always a work in progress
• Work on my eye and seeing distances See above
• 2pointober  Done!  End time was over 8mins!
• no stirrups at least once a week Nope
• Be able to canter a full course of fences (height doesn't matter) without losing my shit  I can handle a course of ground poles, does that count?

Showing:

• Continue showing as time and money allows Showed in July, and the show we planned on going to in Oct got rained out.
• Dominate the crossrails and make all the little pony kids cry when they lose to us  We can rock the crossrail trot-a-course!

 As far as 2017, I think I'm going to break it back down to quarterly goals.

The Peebs:

• Continue canter work, especially to the right
• Flying changes
• More lateral work 
• Figure out how to stop rushing the fence going right up the long side of the ring.
• Stay happy, healthy, sane, and sound

Me:

• More work cantering fences without feeling like I'm going to die
• Work on relaxing my hands and elbows
• More no stirrup work

I'm removing our showing goals. I tend to get hyper focused on what I feel like we should be doing and what I want to do versus where we're at.  Showing should be fun. So our showing goal/plan is to show as much as we can time and money wise and to have fun with it.

Goals Check In

My goals for the first half of the year were pretty basic since I had just gotten Peebs:

The Peebs:

• Work on ear clipping/ear handling in general  Still needs work.  But clipping his ears while sedated works well.
• Get his teeth done  Found out he was missing a tooth!
• Figure out our bitting situation  Broken snaffle pelham ftw!!!
• Lunge 1x week in the vienna reins  Did this almost every week, but keeping it for a yearly goal
• Canter transitions Much better than they were, but we can always improve!

Me:

• Get comfortable over fences again! Pretty sure this will always be a work in progress
• Work on my eye and seeing a distance I think my eye has gotten worse....
• Learn to trust that he's not going to take off/spin/crowhop/rear  While not a deadhead, Peebs is such a laid back guy its been easy to relax on him, especially on the flat.  

As anxious as I am to show I'd love to be able to set show goals, but I figure we need to get to know each other first.  If I show before the summer, great!  If not, who cares!  My main goal is get comfortable jumping again and enjoy the ride! Done!! And with great results! I'm planning another show in a couple weeks, still at the trot-a-course height but this year will be dedicated to getting back into the groove and having fun at shows!

For the rest of 2016 my goals are:

The Peebs:

• Work on ear clipping/mane pulling/ear handling
• Lunge 1x week in vienna reins
• Canter transitions 
• Start working on flying changes 
• Field rides once a week when the fields open up

Me:

• Get comfortable over fences
• Work on my eye and seeing distances
• 2pointober
• no stirrups at least once a week
• Be able to canter a full course of fences (height doesn't matter) without losing my shit

Showing:

• Continue showing as time and money allows
• Dominate the crossrails and make all the little pony kids cry when they lose to us

2016 Mid Year Goals

I figure since I suck with monthly and quarterly goals, I'm going to try twice yearly goals.  Since I've met my only first goal of 2016, "Buy a new pony", I figure it's time to set some new goals.

The Peebs:

• Work on ear clipping/ear handling in general
• Get his teeth done
• Figure out our bitting situation
• Lunge 1x week in the vienna reins
• Canter transitions 

Me:

• Get comfortable over fences again!
• Work on my eye and seeing a distance
• Learn to trust that he's not going to take off/spin/crowhop/rear 

As anxious as I am to show I'd love to be able to set show goals, but I figure we need to get to know each other first.  If I show before the summer, great!  If not, who cares!  My main goal is get comfortable jumping again and enjoy the ride!

Q2 Goal Review and Q3 Goals

Hahahahahahahaha.  Oh man this is going to be rough. Here are the goals I put out for us:

 Since I started riding Tia and hope to show her my Q2 goals are going to include her.

For McKenna:

• Get her out and go places!  My plan is if/when I show Tia to get a stall for McKenna and park her in it at the shows.  And time/space/energy permitting I'll hand walk/lunge/ride her around the show grounds as well. Pretty much a fail.  We did haul out to a friend's house on Monday but that was after Q2 ended. 
• "Jump" more.  She gets so excited over the little crossrails that it makes me nervous doing them outside of a lesson.  I guess that just means I need to lesson more!  For the most part we did lesson and jump more.  She still  scares me jumping.
• Work on clipping her ears.  Did do this, but she still hates getting them done.

For Tia:

• Continue grid work, adding in bounces.  I don't exactly remember when I rode Tia last, but we did do some grid work and bounces. 
• Work on more eq/jumper style courses Haven't been riding the mare so this didn't happen
• All the counter canter! See above
• Show in the 2'6", either hunter, eq, or jumpers.  I'm not picky See above

For Phoenix:

• Stay happy, fat, and adorable!Win!!  Old man is super happy and super fat! 

Q3 Goals: 

McKenna: 

• Sell her!  Hopefully sooner rather than later because for the next two weeks I'm going to be utterly swamped at work and won't have much time/energy to put into her.  Sorry in advance mare!
• Trainer rides.  My BO has a dressage trainer riding one of her horses 4-5 days a week at our barn and I'm hoping I can afford to have her do a ride or two a week on the mare.  I really like how BS rides and it'll be good for McKenna.  And I'm hoping to have my jump trainer rider her a couple times as well.

Phoenix:

• Stay happy, fat, and adorable

Me:

• Ride some of the other horses in the barn (I'm riding a friends two mares while she's gone, they're reiners but super nice and super well trained and/or Tia) to get back into a happy riding place.  Riding has become work and something I don't look forward to with McKenna so I need to change that!
• Buy a new pony after McKenna sells.

2015 Q1 Goal Review and Q2 Goals

My goals for the first quarter of the year were:

For McKenna:

• work at least 4x/week.  Have one lunge in vienna reins day and one "jump" (poles, cross rails, etc) day a week. Pretty much stuck to it.  The only real "time off" she had was after her chiro adjustment and that was per the vet.  I wasn't great about one "jump" day per week but we'll get there.
• Continue working on our canter. Success!  We were complimented on our canter improvement at our last lesson with TS and she gave us homework (shallow serpentines to introduce counter canter) that we've been working on.
• Get her out and go places!  I haven't taken her anywhere in the year that I've had her and I want to start exposing her to new places before hitting our first show. Complete and utter FAIL. Partly due to my truck dieing and me not trusting it hauling and partly due to time/availability of someone to go with us. 

For Phoenix:

• Stay a happy, somewhat sound, old man. Win!  Phoenix moved to his new retirement home and seems pretty happy out there.  He looks sounder less lame and isn't stocking up in his hind end anymore.

 Since I started riding Tia and hope to show her my Q2 goals are going to include her.

For McKenna:

• Get her out and go places!  My plan is if/when I show Tia to get a stall for McKenna and park her in it at the shows.  And time/space/energy permitting I'll hand walk/lunge/ride her around the show grounds as well.
• "Jump" more.  She gets so excited over the little crossrails that it makes me nervous doing them outside of a lesson.  I guess that just means I need to lesson more!  
• Work on clipping her ears.  

For Tia:

• Continue grid work, adding in bounces.
• Work on more eq/jumper style courses 
• All the counter canter!
• Show in the 2'6", either hunter, eq, or jumpers.  I'm not picky

For Phoenix:

• Stay happy, fat, and adorable!

2015 Q1 Goals

I'm going to try to stick with our quarterly goals this year. I have some longer yearly goals which I'll post as well but a lot of my long term goals are all dependant on how McKenna does/grows up. 

For McKenna:

• work at least 4x/week.  Have one lunge in vienna reins day and one "jump" (poles, cross rails, etc) day a week.
• Continue working on our canter. 
• Get her out and go places!  I haven't taken her anywhere in the year that I've had her and I want to start exposing her to new places before hitting our first show. 

For Phoenix:

• Stay a happy, somewhat sound, old man. 

My year long goal for McKenna would be to start doing course work, canter fences, and attend our first show.  While not super ambitious, and right now I'd be happy showing in the cross rails I think these are relatively attainable.

2014 Goals

Hahahahaha.  When I started 2014 I had the plan to do quarterly goals.  That obviously fell by the wayside as I took my blogging break.  These were my goals from the first quarter of the year:


Buddy:

Work back to the 2'9"-3' and maybe show at that height.  Done!

• Done, but not in the first quarter.  We showed in the 2'9"-3' jumpers in May and managed to eek out a 6th place year end award in the Low AA jumpers.  Ironically, getting a year end award wasn't on my yearly goal list because I knew I would be selling Buddy.

Work on his manners. Meh.

• Once I started riding him more regularly than his lease girls, that got better.  Not perfect, but ok.

My big goal for him for the year was to sell him to the perfect home, which happened and for more $$$ than I was asking! I follow his lease girl on Instagram and she's got some adorably cute pics of them that make me tear up.

McKenna:

Work her (lunge or ride) at least 5 days/week. Kinda

• Didn't happen till this summer, after I sold Bud and she became my primary pony.  And once it started getting cold this fall/winter I wussed out.  But it's on the list for next year!

Refine our canter transitions and develop a balanced canter. In progress!

• We had some of the best transitions and nicest canter yet in our lesson on Sunday, so there's hope!

Continue working over little jumps and cavaletti.  Free jump her again with more height/spread to see how she does Done!

Phoenix:
Keep him as sound as possible and to continue to pack Anna around. Major Fail

• Obviously it wasn't anything I could control, but the old man had to be retired in April/May.  He came up lamer than his normal, and after injecting to see if it would help his side bone my vet flat out told me it was time for him to be done. And a bout of cellulitis in September didn't help anything either. But he was running around in turnout a few days ago like a crazy pony (actually out ran and played McKenna) so at least he still feels young at heart!

Bringing Up Baby

I've had McKenna just over a year, September 30th was our anniversary. We can currently walk, trot, and canter fairly nicely, with most of our trot work on the bit and moving forward.  We've started trotting cross rails and small verticals. I feel comfortable enough to start dropping my stirrups on her. I had hoped that we would a lot farther along after a year...cantering courses, showing, etc.  I haven't taken her off the property, but hopefully that will change soon.  I am proud that my trainer has only gotten on her once, and only rode her for about 20 minutes before having me get on.  I do have another trainer ride scheduled for her on Sunday, mainly because I've only seen someone else ride her twice and want to see how she goes.




First Ride

Obviously from the time I got her to the end of June I had Buddy and was having a very hard time trying to work both of them.  It didn't help that McKenna was very babyish, needed lots of turn out/lunging before I got on, and was prone to some not so fun antics.  She liked to come up with her front end and spin, and on one occasion she stood straight up with me.  I'm not sure how I managed to stay on, all I remember is grabbing mane and my martingale strap and praying. Now however, she's much more mature and while she still spooks, she doesn't try to rear and spin and can go back to work without loosing her mind.

"Me spook? Never."

My plan after Buddy sold was to put McKenna into boot camp and be able to hit a schooling show or two in the fall.  Mother Nature and McKenna had other plans.  It was one of the hottest summers here, almost two moths of 90+ degree weather.  While I grew up in that weather in SoCal, I've adjusted to Oregon's much more moderate climate and was dying.  I'd ride on weekend in the mornings, and in the afternoons during the week when we had cooler days. 


Oops

McKenna lost four shoes in three moths, always the left front.  One was 36hrs after our farrier put it back on.  My farrier kept saying that her feet are pretty nice for a TB, and that she shouldn't be loosing that many shoes.  I put bell boots on her 24/7 and she ripped the first pair off within two days.  But the second pair lasted a month and we didn't have any lost shoes during that time. She currently has clips on the front and that has seemed to help.

Our current plan, to be discussed with trainer on Sunday, will hopefully be to continue trotting fences, start cantering fences, and introduce lines.  I'd really like to be able to a schooling show in December and at least do cross rails, if not the 2'.  She's very much a jumper, but not many shows around here have lower level jumpers.  Most start at 2'6" and I'd like to give her some experience at the smaller heights first.

My current favorite pic of us.

2014 Goals-Quarterly Edition

Right now, I'm going to set Quarterly Goals, instead of Yearly Goals.  Since I'm not 100% sure McKenna will be the jumper I want and Buddy's longevity with me is up in the air, I don't want to commit to year long goals.  We'll reevaluate after March and go from there.

Buddy:

Work back to the 2'9"-3' and maybe show at that height.

• There's only 1 jumper show on the calendar so far in February but I'm hoping to make it.

Work on his manners.

• His lease girls have let him get away with a lot, (yanking the reins out of your hands, being pushier when he doesn't want to do something, not standing still after you get on) and manners like that are unacceptable.  I'm going to have to get after the girls too.

McKenna:

Work her (lunge or ride) at least 5 days/week.

• She's so high energy that she needs to get out more than I'm currently working her.

Refine our canter transitions and develop a balanced canter.

• I know the balanced canter part will take longer than 3 months, but we got to start somewhere

Continue working over little jumps and cavaletti.  Free jump her again with more height/spread to see how she does.

Phoenix (the only one with early goals):
Keep him as sound as possible and to continue to pack Anna around.

2013 Goals

Our goals for 2013 were as follows:

Keep showing at 2'6", preferably in the jumpers and eq, and hopefully move up to the 2'9".

• Partial success.  We did the 2'6" all year, in the jumpers and eq but didn't make the move to 2'9".  We schooled 2'9" (and I jumped Tia 3'3"), but we haven't done that for a few months.  I also found out that even though we only did 2 shows in the jumpers, we ended up 8th place for the year in the OHJA .75m beginning jumper regional division against horses that competed at both schooling and A shows.  Unfortunately OHJA only gives year end ribbons to 6th...grrr!

Long shot, but qualify for Medal Finals

• I was hoping to qualify for the OHJA Mini Medal finals, but we only got 8 out the needed 10 points.  But we did qualify and compete at the Lake Oswego Hunt Nancy Wild Medal Finals!!  And even with a major rider brain fart we came home with a 4th on the flat and a 6th over fences.

Show 1st level dressage again and redeem ourselves

• Total fail

Go XC schooling, to the beach, or ranch sorting at least a few times.

• Feb 1: Ranch sorting
  May 10: Mini XC school at Inavale
  July 21: Trail and river ride in the mountains
  July 27: Cutting horse clinic
• Win!

I'm having some trouble with our 2014 Goals, so stay tuned.  I'm thinking of doing half yearly goals....

Five Day Challenge - Day 1

Because this is the current temp:

And the front of my house looks like this:

I am stuck inside.  We got between 6-9 inches of snow yesterday, and because I'm considered essential staff at the university where I work I had to go in.  It normally takes me 45mins to get to work, but yesterday it took over an hour and a half.  By the time I left work driving conditions had gotten so bad that the state police had required chains for the main freeway between work and home.  I spent over an hour at the local tire place trying to find chains for my car, which they didn't have because the tires on my Scion (which are the original tires from Scion/Toyota) are a very odd size.  I then had to take the two lane highway home, which normally adds another 30mins.  It took me almost 3hrs to get home, and it's a total of 48 miles. I didn't make it to the barn yesterday, but I'm hoping to make out today. So onto the Five Day Challenge!!

1. Most influential person in your riding
My parents!  Without them there is no way I could afford my ponies.  They have gone above and beyond in helping me financially when the easy thing would have been to tell me to sell one of the horses. Thank you thank you thank you!!

2. Piece of tack you would splurge on
Everyone is saying custom saddles, and yes I would do that too.  But what I would really love is considered tack.  I would love a big one ton dually pickup like my barn owner's.  I've been lucky enough to use it to haul and I love it!  It's so smooth and handles like a dream.  Of course I'd love a big 4 horse gooseneck trailer to go with it.

Come to mama!

3. Top 5 riding playlist
We usually have a radio playing the local country station in the barn.  And sometime my barn owner's husband will practice playing guitar in their apartment and you can hear it in the barn.  I usually don't listen to music while riding other than that.

4. Most important part of your barn
Its my second home. I'm pretty sure I spend an equal amount of time there as I do at home.  My barn owners have become family and even talk about when they retire from the barn that it will become mine. I've basically become the assistant barn manager, and when the BO's are gone I'm in charge (which is still somewhat intimidating and stressful!). Our barn isn't the fanciest, and we don't have winter turn out, but our summer pastures and field riding are awesome!!  The footing in our outdoor is some of the best around; it can pour rain one day and be rideable the next.

5. 3 winter riding goals
With Buddy our main goal is to get back in flow with each other since I haven't really been riding him for the past 6 weeks.  I want us to be doing 2'9"-3' and see how much of physical toll it takes on him.  With McKenna our winter goals are to be cantering more consistently and I want to start her over some small fences by spring.

Looking Back

Looking back 2012 was a pretty good year.  We started in January when I was rehabbing Bud a bit from a nasty cut on his right hind he did in Sept 2011.  We went from basically just trotting cross rails to schooling 2'9" fences. I know we've had our frustrating moments, but all in all he's come so far! And I never thought a year ago that I would bring Phoenix back to work and that he'd be doing so well for Anna, and that he could actually make it back in the show ring over fences.  Add in little miss Zoe, and it was a pretty busy year! I can't wait to see what 2013 brings us.

I started the year doing goals, but that quickly fell to the wayside.  I think I'd like to keep having yearly goals.  Our yearly goals for 2012 were:

Be showing 2'6" (hunters, jumper, or eq doesn't matter) and be schooling higher

• We definitely nailed it.  We showed at 2'6" three times this year in the hunters and eq.  By the end of the year we have schooled one 3' fence and others at 2'9".

Attend as many schooling shows as we can, and $$ allowing, one A rated show

• I ended up doing 5 schooling shows this year (Two with just Bud, two with Bud and Zoe, and one with just Zoe).  No rated show, due to both money and time. 

Be schooling 1st level dressage movements, and if $$ allows show at 1st level

• We did show dressage, and it wasn't pretty.  After our lesson a few weeks ago with Mary I know we can redeem ourselves next year.

For fun, go XC schooling at least one, hopefully twice, and take Bud to the beach

• Unfortunately we didn't do either the beach or XC schooling.  Again, time and money were to blame.  We did go ranch sorting, so I'll say its a kinda complete goal.

Be comfortable doing a 2' course without my stirrups

• I haven't been as diligent about no stirrups in the past few months, but I've been doing some easy bareback rides with Bud.  We'll keep working on it!

Our goals for 2013 are as follows:

• Keep showing at 2'6", preferably in the jumpers and eq, and hopefully move up to the 2'9".
• Long shot, but qualify for Medal Finals.
• Show 1st level again and redeem ourselves
• Go XC schooling, to the beach, or ranch sorting at least a few times.
• For Phoenix, to keep him sound and have him and Anna show in crossrails and possibly short stirrup by the end of the year.

Merry Christmas everyone and Happy New Year!!

Goals and Plans

Let's see how we did for the January goals:

Ride at least once a week on the flat without stirrups. As in take my stirrups off the saddle once I have gotten on and still do all our normal flat work. (A miss, but only because I was gone for a week taking care of Dad. When we did do stirrup-less, we did most our normal flat work; leg yields, shoulder in, and counter canter.  I was too timid to try flying changes)

Jump once a week, getting up to 2'3" by the end of the month. We haven't been jumping regularly for the past few months due to a variety of reasons, and we need to get back into shape for show season. Depending on weather, if our outdoor arena is usable I would like to be doing small courses by the end of the month. Our indoor arena is only large enough for a couple fences, so if the outdoor is out, I'll be ok with cantering single fences inside. (So we did a small 2'3" course in Feb.  Due to me being gone, then the massive flooding that had both our indoor and outdoor arenas flooded we couldn't jump the last big of January.  But if Mother Nature had cooperated, we would have been ready)

Continue working on our dressage-y flat work; leg yields, shoulder in, lengthening and collecting.

(We did the leg yields and shoulder in, but kinda failed on the lengthening and collecting.  Hopefully the addition of spurs will help us with this one in Feb.)
 

Work on our flying changes, both across the diagonal and along the long side. Our changes across the diagonal are almost there, but he hasn't quite gotten the concept of doing them in a straight line. (Our changes on the diagonal have gotten much better, but we only schooled the ones on the long side a time or two.  They were better than they have been, so I'll take it)

For February:

• Continue the no stirrup work.  On days we jump, start doing some small trot fences with no irons.
• Start schooling single fences at 2'6".  Continue course work at 2'3" adding in more technical aspects like rollbacks and bending lines.
• Again, focus on dressage for flat work.  As stated above, I hope the spurs will help make our leg yields nicer and I know they will help with the lengthening.

Our local show association is staring to put out this years show dates,and I've started tentatively planning our schedule. If I can afford it, and if we keep jumping regularly, I want to take Bud to a little jumper show on March 3.  They have x-rail classes on up, with a relatively small entry fee. 

A big barn in Portland, that my friend (and the girl who started Buddy over fences) manages is having a one day clinic with three time Olympian Kevin Freeman in April.  While I'm mainly a h/j rider, and Kevin Freeman is an eventer, I'm really excited for the clinic.  It's being billed as a fundamentals of jumping clinic for all disciplines. It's right before my birthday and my mom agreed to pay for it as my present.  We will be riding in the 2'3"-2'6" group, so we really have to be coursing 2'6" by then!

Goals

For our yearly goals, I'm keeping it pretty simple.

• Be showing 2'6" (hunters, jumper, or eq doesn't matter) and be schooling higher
• Attend as many schooling shows as we can, and $$ allowing, one A rated show
• Be schooling 1st level dressage movements, and if $$ allows show at 1st level
• For fun, go XC schooling at least one, hopefully twice, and take Bud to the beach
• Be comfortable doing a 2' course without my stirrups

I have our monthly goals at little more planned out. For January:

• Ride at least once a week on the flat without stirrups.  As in take my stirrups off the saddle once I have gotten on and still do all our normal flat work.
• Jump once a week, getting up to 2'3" by the end of the month. We haven't been jumping regularly for the past few months due to a variety of reasons, and we need to get back into shape for show season. Depending on weather, if our outdoor arena is usable I would like to be doing small courses by the end of the month.  Our indoor arena is only large enough for a couple fences, so if the outdoor is out, I'll be ok with cantering single fences inside.
• Continue working on our dressage-y flat work; leg yields, shoulder in, lengthening and collecting. 
• Work on our flying changes, both across the diagonal and along the long side. Our changes across the diagonal are almost there, but he hasn't quite gotten the concept of doing them in a straight line.