1st Quarter Goals

I love what M from A Enter Spooking is doing with her Quarterly Reports/Goals as it keeps me motivated to keep moving forward and it keeps goals feeling more attainable. 

While I did a post on my prospective 2018 Goals in General, I love that Quarterly posts can give me more freedom and flexibility in setting attainable goals, while continuing to move forward with training.  It also keeps me actively blogging, something I tend to lack on.

Kidd is home from his [failed] trial and is now at the local boarding facility. I rode him last night for the first time and ghad.. I missed that horse.  It was certainly not a record setting ride by any means, and our lack of fitness was painfully apparent, but I was beaming from start to finish.  How could I even consider selling this guy?!

Anyway, moving forward I plan to board Kidd for Jan/Feb and possibly take him home for March, weather pending.  The indoor board that he’s forced to be on due to the lady who took him on trial FULL body clipping him is $600 + TX per month and it adds up quickly.  When we first looked at our place in March ’17, my arena was ride-able, so I’m remaining hopeful... As such, I may need to do a 1^st Quarter “update” later on in the Quarter, but regardless here is an outline of my goals for the coming months.

January,

·         Ride a minimum of 4x Per Week

·         Remain forgiving and understanding of our fitness levels; keep things short and simple

·         Go through my Horse Trailer and locate all my ‘missing’ things

·         Pre-Bag grain for simplicity and space saving
- Decided to skip bagging and put it in a bin instead

·         Better Organize my Tack Locker

·         Bath Kidd

·         Clean my Tack (woops – for someone who makes saddle soap, I’m terrible)

·         Arrange a Saddle Fitting appointment (my Zaldi is fitting too wide)
- Reflocked my Zaldi to fit better and mucked around with my Jump Saddle but it's become apparent if I plan to do much jumping I need to find a different saddle better suited to Kidds back.

·         Farrier Appointments for Kidd at the arena and the horses at the Farm later this month

·         Try AFX before exercise until the jug runs out to see if it helps with his tail swishing/cold backed behavior when I first get on.

February,

·         Ride a minimum of 4x Per Week

·         Continue to remain forgiving and understanding of our fitness levels but continue to build on things from January

·         Begin asking for a little ‘more’

·         Keep my tack locker tidy/organized

·         Bath Kidd

March,

·         Hopefully move Kidd home, Weather Pending

·         Ideally ride a min 3x per week if he’s home, weather/footing pending

·         Incorporate some hacks/trails if he’s home (not an option at the boarding facility)

·         Renovate my Tack Room (might take all summer though…)

Overall 1^st Quarter,

·         The lady who took Kidd on Trial managed to do an excellent job at taming is insane mane.  I hope to keep on top of it.

·         Continue to have fun, and literally just enjoy the ride

·         Track my Expenses (Thanks C at Poor Woman Showing)

·         Find a feeding plan suited to Kidd (enough protein, etc without adding too much fat/energy).

Kai is out in the herd and is remarkably still alive.  She’s completed her time at the indoor and though I kind of dropped off the face of the earth near the end, I am happy with the things we accomplished and as such she is ‘turned out’ until Spring, so I will hold off on setting any goals for her this Quarter.