2015 Goals and Year in Review

This was definitely not my year horse-wise. Unfortunately they've begun to take the back burner with vet school in the works, so it'll probably be at least 4 years until I get to ride consistently. At least I'm hoping so.

My goals for this past year were pretty low, though sadly I achieved a 0% success rate. Depressing.

• Compete in the one-day HT with Jetta

 Jetta was pretty neglected this year as I was trying to prep Misty for sale and didn't have the time to ride two horses. So we didn't do this or our next goal.

• Ride a second level dressage test at a show and not fail horribly

Not even close, Jetta didn't get to go to ANY shows this year. 

• Sell Misty

Fail. Had a couple close calls, but no luck. 

• Compete in an LD

Again, a fail. I would have loved to do this, but with no time to ride, there was no time to get Jetta to the fitness level necessary for a 25-30 mile ride. Bummer.

But I did get to do some stuff. Misty went a dressage show early in the year, earning a 66.54% and 65.9% at Training 2 and 3.

  

I got the boy to ride Misty on the trails which was fun and adorable.

I leased Misty out for several months and she got to do a recognized horse trial.

I got my long awaited hoofprint tattoo for Grady.

Misty and I did the fall Inavale one-day HT at beginner novice and placed first in our division which cheered me up about our show season.

 

I also took her to possibly the most miserable H/J schooling show on a whim one weekend and had fun despite the weather, made it worth it by winning the 2'6" jumper class!

Of course my biggest success of the year was getting into vet school and surviving my first term. So while I may not have gotten to do the things I wanted to horse-wise, overall it was still a great year.

I'm leaning towards not doing any goals for the next year. I don't know if I'll be able to complete anything with school happening as my main focus is surviving that. My roommate wants me to be a working student over the summer with her dressage trainer as he'll be starting a couple babies and then I can maybe ride some of his upper level horses. I haven't decided if I should do that or get some more vet clinic work under my belt. It would certainly be nice to get back into riding shape, but I don't know if I'd have too much time for my own horse riding.

I'd love to get Jetta back into show shape and take her to a dressage show and really work towards that second level goal of ours. I'd like to get Misty showing at First Level, as I think she's pretty much ready for it, just needs a bit more polish. Of course do the Inavale one-day HT and if I can afford it, possibly the recognized HT as well. I'd really love to take some lessons. And I've become less motivated to sell Misty, though I'd still really like to find her a new home. She's been one of the most fun horses I've ever owned, so I'm not in too much of a hurry to get rid of her, though it'd certainly be easier financially and time-wise to only have one horse. Not sure if I want to put these into concrete "goals" though since the last couple of years my goals just never seem to work out. I think I'll just sit back and see what happens and hope for the best!

Here's to 2016 for being a great year no matter what I do!

Secret Santa

I think the blogger secret Santa is one of my favorite gift exchanges of the year! Thank you to Tracy for putting it on again!

I got my gift from Emily of Wilbur, Ellie and Emily. 

I love it! I got some adorable Christmas unicorn socks, some horse and human cookies and some Higher Standards leather soap. The horse cookies were even hand made and came in a cute mason jar with a pony on top (it survived the shipping!). The horses loved the cookies which came as a surprise since they don't typically like peppermints, but they were begging for more.

Cute socks!

All the goodies

Thank you so much Emily! I sent my gift off yesterday to my secret Santa so I hope they like it!

Boring Update

Horse life has not been too exciting lately. I'm currently on a lovely 3-week break from school, so I get to catch up on all the sleep, TV, horse riding and other fun things I've been missing out on.

The horses are both doing well. I've been riding them pretty consistently in the past week and I've missed it so much!

Misty is having fun being ridden western for the time being, for no other reason than just because. It's wonderful to think of when I got her, how far she's come. She has a lovely little western jog - certainly not western pleasure worthy, but fun to ride and would probably do just fine in ranch horse and 4-H/OHSET type of shows. She's getting more consistent at carrying her head and neck low and level. She gets her leads, does nice stops and roll backs and even has a cute little spin going on. It's a lot of fun!

 

Jetta has successfully been ridden without trying to kill me, though the super rainy/windy weather certainly hasn't helped in the spook department. It's been nice and quiet at the barn in that usually I'm the only one there using the arena.

She's looking really good right now though!

Both girls are all blanketed up which I appreciate in respect to keeping them clean. I think I've decided not to clip again this year since I'm not riding much. Plus no clippers = trying to borrow friends clippers and most of them don't work very well so it's hard enough to clip whiskers and bridle paths.

They get turned out occasionally by the BM and absolutely love trying to get as muddy as possible.