Time Flies

I can't believe we're already midway through January, where has the time gone? 

The holiday season finished on a very quiet note. With having a infant under 5yo and the height of the newest variant, we ended up deciding to pass on large traditional family gatherings and various get-togethers that we had originally planned. It was a little sad since there are a quite a few people in our families who never met baby boy and he's already 14 months old now. 

C started to walk 100% independently about a month ago and he has been unstoppable since. He decided one night that he was tired of holding onto things for support and suddenly he was off on his own...and didn't stop again for 30 minutes. It been such a joy seeing him really grow into his own- he enjoys engaging with new people with his bright smiles, is just a little bit naughty, and definitely has a mind of his own.  

Quest and I are doing very well. We have done a few trail rides and mareface has been sassy and ready to go every time. Equestrian goals for 2022 are simple:

1. Getting Quest used to random human shenanigans as I want to introduce C to leadline riding in the warmer months so I'll be pulling out some of our old desensitizing toys and trying some games to get her used to all the wacky things I can think of. Mareface has always been rock-solid steady in the arena (to the point of being bored and half-asleep) so I honestly don't expect anything to really happen but better safe than sorry. 
2. Take Quest off property for some fun trail rides. Since I sold my trailer last year, I haven't been able to really do much new trail exploring and I'm itching to do it again. Fortunately I have connected with friends willing to let me catch a trailer ride with them so hopefully the stars align for an adventure soon. 
3. And if things fall into my lap, I'd love to do a catch ride or two in CTR or endurance but that is on the way back burner due to limited budget and PTO priorities. 

Other than that, anything extra that we manage to accomplish in the year to come would be a nice cherry on top. Hope you all had a great start to 2022 so far! 

2014 Recap

Inspired by Emma over at 'Fraidy Cat Eventing, here's a brief recap of my 2014....which was quite action-packed, to say the least.

Jan/Feb: Rode through the winter with lessons at SHS. They didn't have an indoor ring or covered area- I was freezing all the time. Thanks, polar vortex. I met Rori around the end of January, rode her 2-3 times before deciding to officially lease her starting in February.

March/April: I did my first schooling show with schoolmaster Dylan, the TB at SHS in March. While we didn't win anything, it was a great learning experience for me since I only had about 4 months of riding under my belt at that point. Rori and I continued to do lots of trail riding as the weather got warmer and we even did some bareback.

May/June: Got to go to my first hunter pace with Rori- it was TONS of fun and I realized a few things about myself: I love trail riding, I love going fast, and I enjoy being competitive. Hmm, did someone say endurance? In June, I decided to end my lease with Rori for a number of reasons. I'll get into the details one day but it's something that still causes a lot of heartache.

July/August: I started lessons at EEC in July and realized very quickly that only getting to ride 1-2 times a week really sucked. I start shopping for horses to do endurance and look into several prospects. One night in August, this pretty girl caught my eye. I don't think I'll ever be able to put into words how I "knew" she'd be the one but the next morning, I made her mine.

Sept/Oct: Quest arrives home Sept 16 after three weeks in quarantine. After a month of groundwork review and lunging, we go for our first ride together in the arena on October 8; two weeks later we hit the trails.

Nov/Dec: I start to try new and different things so we ride bareback, we ride bitless, we start working with ground poles. Looking forward to what the new year may bring!

Nov Review/Dec Goals

November In Review:

• More trail rides: Completed! We did 4 trail rides and Quest did great. We found a couple of things to work on which will be addressed in next month's goals.  
• Transitions: Completed. Trot-canter-trot, as expected, was no big deal and accomplished quite early in the month. 
• Work on flying lead changes: Nope. Bad weather led to lack of space in the arena to actually do anything safely. We'll shelf this one for later on in the spring.
• No-stirrup November (at least one entire ride stirrup-less): Completed! Not one but 4 rides, 3 of them being bareback in fact.
• Start trimming: Completed. I'm trimming every other week to start, so that was twice this month. Since I'm still learning, I take off less than a professional trimmer so the shorter frequency works out well so far. I'm starting to get more comfortable handling the rasp and working with a hoof stand. I'll take some pictures and do a hoof post sometime.

December Goals:
Anticipating colder weather and limited arena space to work with, a lot of this month's goals are smaller in "scale" but still important.

• Handwalking trails- Weather pending. We've done two solo handwalks on the trail so far and I'm seeing a ton of improvement already. I got some great feedback on how to address Quest's pushy behavior and I tried out one method which seems to be working really well for her so far. I'll detail it in a later post sometime. 
• Trotting in hand- Quest actually had no idea how to do this when we started out and seemed totally confused at first. Since this just might be pretty important skill for a future endurance horse, so why not learn. Plus it's handy when I get cold and need to jog to warm up. I only started working on this last week and mareface has caught on fast and we can trot straight lines and circles though I want it consistent. And if the footing allows, we're going to do it on the trail too.
• Neck reining: Another future endurance horse-skill thing that would be handy to have I have found myself really wanting to ride one-handed too. 
• Ground pole work: I secretly (not so secretly now) want to cross train Quest to do some jumping. Not knowing her history with it, we're going to start with basic patterns from the 101 Jumping Exercises book.

Oct Review/Nov Goals

October In Review:
I didn't really set any particular goals for October because well, Quest was still quite a mystery to me so the month was less structured and more "go with the flow".

• First ride US: Completed on 10/8! 
• First trail ride: Completed like a boss on 10/18, so very proud of her!
• 2pointober Challenge: Completed with improvement of 2mins to 5:20 mins. The benefits of this exercise are so worth the pain haha I'm planning on doing this every ride as warm up.  

November Goals:
These are probably pretty tame/vague goals but I still don't know Quest's potential and experience with certain things so I think its only fair to stick what has worked last month which was going with her pace.

• More trail rides, maybe 3-4 (weather pending): We started one yesterday but the route was blocked by construction early on. While short, Quest led a part of the ride with ears forward, feeling confident and calm- I was SO proud. We trotted a section of the trail and she immediately came down to a walk when asked. I'm excited to see how she fares with more trail exposure. 
• Transitions: Particularly trot-canter-trot. She likes to go straight to a walk when I request a downward transition. We nail all other transitions though so I think this goal is quite within reach. 
• Work on flying lead changes: We experimented with this the end of last week. I'm pretty sure Quest knows it from WP show training so I'm thinking its mostly on me since I've never gotten to ride one properly. Quest can balance herself quite well counter-cantering though! 
• No-stirrup November: It's been quite awhile since so the plan is to start with 5-10 minutes and work my way up to at least one full ride...oy vey, my thighs...
• Start trimming!