Checking in on Our 2025 Reservations

So... in an interesting turn of Process Goals trumping Outcome Goals, our 2025 Reservations have changed... but our Weekly Reservations have, for the most part, been kept. 

Let's see... 

• January: New dressage trainer. While we now have a new, deeply loved dressage trainer, the dressage trainer we tried out in January didn't end up being the one for us. But JV geographically close as well and is absolutely amazing. 
• February
• Three Lakes at novice did end up being a thing, and also our first time winning a recognized event.
• But a few weeks later at the Majestic schooling show, the wheels started to fall off the bus in a way that kinda ended up being the catalyst for a lot of changes for us. 
• March: Carolina International AND Terranova were no-gos as we worked through residual hind foot soreness.
• April: We did go to Rocking Horse, but things continued to unravel a bit as we had an unattractive but clear stadium round and a stop on XC. This prompted me to add in Ocala Eventing Festival where we had a stop in stadium but a clear XC round. 
• May: Given the way April's reservations panned out, a training move up was clearly not in the cards for May. I did volunteer at the May Majestic, so I was there in a way. Then we buckled down on lessons with a jumper trainer to try to help us create the canter that was missing and causing us problems. We did go to Ocala Summer HT as Area III Champs and competed at Novice. Our jump rounds made it clear that we had started to put the pieces back together again. 

Versus our weekly reservations: 

• Weekly jump lesson ✅
• 1 hour bareback walk hack with terrain questions 🗸
• We have less terrain questions back at the GY's (and by terrain I mean ditches, it is Florida), so this isn't a thing anymore
• But we still walk hack AT LEAST once a week
• Fitness day 🗸
• We've done fitness days once every three weeks or so...
• Part of my reason for slacking was the discovery, that in spite of not being a thoroughbred, he doesn't actually need weekly canter sets to bop around novice just fine.
• This fall though, I'll be more dedicated to this because of our fall reservations... 
• Weekly or every other week dressage lesson ✅
• Dressage school at home  ✅
• Lunge in Equiband 🗸
• This gets a partial check mark because once a week we walk hack in the equiband
• Lunging just... isn't great for us. Even in the equiband, he wants to trail his hind legs out behind and be lazy and I am not skilled enough to correct it. 

Looking ahead to the fall, those weekly reservations still apply, but let's take a look at my fall reservations... 

• August: Bouckaert International - so far this is still my plan. We'll be headed out at novice, but it still is an adventure I want to have 
• September: Stable View Oktoberfest - ditto 
• October: Seizing the day, I plan to go up to Hagyard for the N3D up there. Hence our renewed dedication to conditioning this late summer/fall. My husband agreed to go up with me and I'm excited for this!! Then pony pants gets a break for a few weeks. It will also be a great time of year for trail riding in Florida, so after a couple of weeks OFF, we'll spend a couple of weeks trail riding some fun new places. 

Honestly as I look back over these plans, I am just overjoyed to be doing the things with the BestPonyintheWorld(TM). He is such a cool partner and as long as I feel like he's happy, and I'm a solid partner for him, we could be doing any number of things. And this feeling is what made not moving up to training this spring 1000% the right thing. I am in a looser program than I was in January, basically not a program at all, really, which has its plusses and minuses. But being out of that program has helped with any competitive feelings I was having to move on up. Don't get me wrong, I would love to jog Butterball at a 1* some day. But when that day is or even if it happens at all is less important now. The snackamore hacks; the bouncy, amazing trot we're finding in our dressage lessons; the all day adventures; those are the things that I treasure the most. 

I think, for us at this stage, having loose competition goals is still a good thing. But having the flexibility to adapt and let go of or rework those goals is also a good thing. Overall this spring and summer are definitely the best I've had re horses in a long time.