Instead of doing the whole New Year New Me thing many people attempt at the start of each year, I have taken a rather different route. It is no secret that I was left frustrated after last year. I had big ideas for last year, but due to several unfortunate events, our season was a bit of a write off.
This year will not be a write off. I am starting early, planning lessons, clinics and shows to make sure we get as much done as possible early on. There are several good reasons for this. The first being that the more work I put in now, the more we can improve and achieve this year. The second reason is, if we do have another unlucky year, we will have already achieved something, so the year won’t be as much of a write off as last year was.
I have already kick started this plan having our first lesson of the year a few weeks ago and joining our local riding club! Our first test of the year will be Prelim 12 with our amazing sponsors EquiMind and then we have our first Riding Club show on the 4th of February, where we will be riding Prelim 7 and 14. We haven’t ridden a Prelim since before Scottie’s injury, plus dressage is very competitive around here, so for these first 3 tests of the year we won’t be aiming for a placing, but for a few nice tests around the 65% mark ideally.
I also really want to crack on with our jumping this year and get back to where we were before Scottie started having problems with his shoulders. This means regular lessons and regular jumping! My riding club is holding a few good clinics over the next few months I am hoping to get out to. I am hoping for a jump lesson in the next few weeks with our usual instructor before hopefully going to a show jumping clinic through our riding club towards the end of February. There is also a Cross Country clinic being held at Milton Keynes equestrian centre mid March I think could be really important to go to if I can. The course is really inviting there and we need to get back out on the cross country course after our fall!
I am also started to try and put some money aside each month to save up for my trailer training and I have found somewhere to do my training. So hopefully before the season is out I will have my trailer license, allowing us to get out that bit more! So fingers crossed, this could be our year!
Last Updated on 14/01/2022
