Friday, February 26, 2016

No More Waffling

It seems like I have made plan after plan after plan of which horses I am going to start working, of course, winter weather conditions pretty much put the kibosh on working anyone, so now that the weather is beautiful and my ground is fantastic...


It was time to make a danged plan I could stick to. One that got me rolling, but wasn't so ambitious that I completely wore myself out in the first few days. This time, instead of selecting horses, I went to my calendar and selected a few events.

I picked a barrel race on March 5th that will be Moon's first run. A barrel race on March 26th for Frosty's first run and a horse show on April 2nd for Ruger and Shooter's first outing. All of them are just far enough out for me to get those horses ready, but not so far out that I loose momentum. I most certainly do better staying consistent when I have specific goals to work toward.

Moon came through the winter in good shape. He even had a bit of a belly going, but he lost that almost immediately. He won't be in great condition for the race in 2 weeks, obviously, but should have good enough wind to just go cruise through the pattern. I mostly just want to keep working on the things I started working on last Fall when I ran him. Just getting him to relax and breath before he starts his run and then let him cruise through the left-hand pattern.

Frosty has quite the belly going on again, but he's not fat, fat. Just soft and soggy again. It will take the month I allotted to get him back into good enough shape to make a run.

I want to show Ruger in the Halter class at the show in April. He's looking good, just needs lots of prep work, elbow grease and some conditioning. I have been trying to spend a little time with him and Flashy each day. I dunno, as good as Flashers is looking, if Ruger isn't ready for the show, maybe Flashy will get to debute as a Halter horse. LOL.

Shooter will be shown in the Showmanship class and (hopefully) the Hunter Under Saddle and English Equitation classes. There is no way I can have him ready for Trail or the Sr. Western Pleasure classes for this first show. It's my goal to have him showing in those classes by this summer, but he's far to green to even attempt it right now.

I was contemplating getting LJ ready to show in a reining class, but decided that might not be the best idea. It's take awhile to get LJ freed up and I don't want to get him thinking 'reining horse' again. I think putting LJ on cattle and focusing more on Ranch Horse Versatility stuff will be more complementary to the speed events I want to do with him. He'll still have to do the reining horse portion of the RHV shows, but the level of competitiveness is less intense and only a single portion of what those shows entail. Whatever rateyness he picks up from the reining class will be negated by chasing a cow down the fence. ;-). I did pick out a race on April 23rd for LJ's debute as a barrel horse.  I'll add him into the group on Monday and that will give me 7 weeks to get him ready. I will probably just start out riding him 3 days a week for the first couple of weeks and then when the time changes, I can go to 5/6 days a week. There just isn't enough daylight hours to do everything I need to do yet.

Hah! So without even realizing it, I pretty much got everyone on the schedule. Belle and The Big Bay are the only 2 yet to work into the mix. I was working Belle and she came around nicely. But I'm not really one to just keep lunging and lunging every day for no real reason. I can sack her out, no problem, but don't want to saddle her for the first time out in the open. No, no, no!! I KNOW this little girl is going to buck and I want her safely contained. My pens are still a bit mucky in spots, so it won't work to do it in one of those. Too much risk of her slipping and hurting herself. Her progress will have to wait until I can get the round(ish) pen that Flashy has been living in cleaned out and worked up a little. The Big Bay?...Well, honestly, he is just not a priority right now. I'm sure his reprieve is only temporary though. It's way early in the season and it is going to be a l.o.n.g. and busy season, so I'm sure at some point in the not too distant future I'll put him on the rotation and get him coming along. It's always nice to have a back-up horse. ;-). When you have as many to ride as I do, you have back-ups for your back-ups. Hahahahaha

4 comments:

Shirley said...

Sounds like you have it all laid out. It always helps to write goals down, kinda like a commitment. You are going to be busy! I'm hoping for pics of the youngsters in the horse show.

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

This is going to be a busy year. Lots and lots going on in the area and I am going to take advantage of it. :-D. FINALLY we have some weekday events to go to around here this year. It will make it much easier to season horses and I can just take one or two and actually spend some time on them instead of hauling 4 and never having enough time to give everyone the time and exposure they need.

I'm slowly getting everyone cleaned up. Manes and tails washed and feet trimmed. I finally found my clippers and will be starting clipping training next week. I haven't bothered to use clippers on horses for years now, but now that I've got some that are actually going to a show...I suppose I had better work on that. ;-)

Sherry Sikstrom said...

wow! you have set a good busy schedule for yourself! Can't wait to read about all the shows!

Crystal said...

Oh sounds like a plan. I have way too many as well and have some events planned out but not like that thats too organized for me haha. I better get going here shortly though with more than just Easy or everyone will have the summer off if keeps going as is