I think it's important to have some goals for each year, it gives you a direct vision of what you want to achieve during the year! Even though I've been riding Vallu for nearly a year and a half now, most of the time has been spent on me learning how to ride an advanced horse (massive learning curve!!!) and then also getting Vallu to calm down about everything and to start acting like a normal horse - which incidentally requires lots of TLC and time. And then last year's goals kind of went down the drain when Vallu hurt his leg, so our competition debut has moved to 2014, fingers' crossed that we'll eventually get there!
Here are my riding goals for the upcoming year:
Here are my riding goals for the upcoming year:
1. Start competing with Vallu Unaffiliated medium at first
I haven't competed for a while, and even though I did a couple of competitions last year I do feel a little bit rusty... I just need to put on my big girl pants and get on with it, and hope for the best! I really do love competing, but not having competed with Vallu before is making me slightly apprehensive. Luckily at our yard we have dressage competitions once or twice a week so I'll just have to go to each one until I get back into the hang of it!
2. Join BD and do advanced medium/advanced with him
I really want to have the chance to ride affiliated competitions in order to be able to ride more advanced tests (the unaffiliated competitions at the yard only go up to medium...) But this might only happen in the late summer/autumn - depending on how well Vallu and I do at unaffiliated! Even if I only do one affiliated test, I'll be happy.
3. Learn how to ride 2 tempi changes, try 1 tempis and learn how to ride piaffe properly
One of my own riding goals is to learn to ride 2 tempi changes. Vallu knows how to do them, it's just me that needs to learn :D I can just about do 3 tempis, so it's just a matter of time before I'll learn to be quick enough to ask for 2 tempis. And once this is done, I really want to try 1 tempis. Vallu can do about 3-5 but they are difficult for him as well, so it would be more like us playing around with them since I'm no professional rider ;) But I do need to learn the 2 tempis first and feel secure with them, we have to be able to walk before we try running! One last party trick that I want to improve is our piaffe, at the moment it moves forwards just a bit too much and Vallu tends to drop in the poll a little bit during it. Hopefully during one Andrew lesson we can go over this and he can help me to ride the piaffe better!
4. Be able to go for a long relaxing (non-spooky) hack with Vallu
I really cannot wait for this, I think it'll be great fun to be able to go for hack without constantly having to try to relax Vallu whilst clinging on his neck for dear life. At the moment he is being hacked out by one of the girls who works at the yard who is an eventer and thus is very brave and not scared of Vallu's spooks :D I don't mind his spookiness in the indoor or outdoor arenas, but as soon as we leave the gates and go out I start stressing and Vallu starts spooking. During my 12 day Christmas holiday here in Finland Vallu has been hacking out a lot and he's been a very good boy, so hopefully sometime in the spring/summer we could manage to go for a hack together!
What are your plans for 2014?
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