It's Their Timeline

Do you set goals? Most of us do. Sometimes they’re very specific and ambitious, such as achieving a certain result at a specific show. Other times they’re more ambiguous and open-ended, such as “I’d eventually like to show at least Third Level.” 

Photo Credit: Mutt Love Photography

We can easily get caught up in our excitement and hyper-focused on goal achievement. Maybe we just got a new horse, or we had a super show season, or our training at home is going extremely well. Suddenly, our goals seem closer and more attainable than ever before.

Then just when everything feels like it’s moving along perfectly, Bam! We hit a roadblock. It could be something significant, like a torn ligament. It might be a hurdle in our training, where our horse can’t seem to get a clean flying change and we don’t know how to fix it. Maybe our horse is getting too flustered and we need to take a step back and work on basics again. Or it could just be that it is taking way longer than we thought it would to develop the strength for collection.

Regardless of the reason for the setback, many times we are struck with feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, and even despair. We worry that our horse won’t be ok. We worry about our ability to get our horse to where we want it to be. We worry that we will never achieve our goals.

Some riders get down on themselves in these moments. Others get frustrated with their horse. Neither is productive or kind. We need to have empathy for ourselves and our horses in these moments. To take a step back and look at the big picture. To remember that “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” and neither was a Grand Prix horse.

We control the how, not the when in our training. We get to decide what methods to use, who to take lesson with, how we treat our horses. But we don’t get to control how quickly we get there. We have the ability to slow things down if we want to, but we can never go faster than the horse’s body and mind can handle.

Some things will come quickly, others will seemingly take forever. There will be ups, downs, and even steps backwards at times. This is all part of the journey; part of the learning process.

The important thing to remember is that setbacks and dips don’t mean we won’t get there, they just mean the journey isn’t linear. There will be highs and there will be lows. The lows make us appreciate the highs even more. We can use the highs to reward our horses and build confidence. The lows are an opportunity to find gaps in your training and fill the holes.

Get really good at looking at the big picture. A six month setback from an injury is a minor blip in a 20 year riding career. Struggling with flying changes for a year will seem insignificant in 5 years when you’re doing tempis. Each setback or struggle will teach you something, if you allow it to, and make you a better rider, trainer, and horse owner.

None of us progress exactly the same over the course of time. We have some things that come easily to us and others that don’t. Horses are the same. Their bodies are all built differently and they have individual personalities. Their environment and past experiences also shape their physical, mental, and emotional ability to learn.

When I first got Lacey, I took things very slowly. She was an emotional basket case, and her feet were terrible. I only took her to one schooling show after I’d had her for a year, and did walk-trot. By the following summer, we had settled into work. We did a bunch of schooling and gold shows, as well as a number of clinics. She started to progress quite quickly. That second summer, which was 2016, we showed Training and First level.

By that point, things were really rolling. In 2017 we did Second Level, in 2018 Second and Third, and in 2019 we did Fourth and PSG. I very clearly remember my coach telling me to be prepared to spend a few years getting good at Small Tour before advancing again. I think I said “Yeah…” as though I was agreeing with her, but in my head I was thinking she had no clue what she was talking about - Lacey and I were doing awesome and of course we’d keep jumping up to a new level each year! After all, we’d been averaging 1-2 levels per year since 2015.

Well guess what - my coach was right (go figure!). We had a LOT of work to do even just to get from PSG to Intermediate 1, which didn’t happen until 2022. Then it took another three years to get to Medium Tour. My plan of being at Grand Prix in just a few short years after PSG was not only extended - as the years passed, I started to doubt if we’d ever make it there.

Lacey is not built for collection, she was bred to be a hunter. She’s bum-high, long backed, and camped out behind. The piaffe and passage turned out to be a real struggle for her, and we hit a brick wall. Eventually I came to terms with the fact that we might have maxed out at I1. I let go of my dreams of Grand Prix, and decided to just enjoy my horse instead of putting pressure on her to be something she wasn’t.

As the years passed, we kept working on improving our current skill set. We had a clean I1 test in 2024, which I was thrilled with. We attained the third score of 62% or higher that I had been aiming for, as a qualifying criteria for becoming a senior judge down the road, should I ever want to. I was content with that, and grateful to my little horse for helping me achieve that goal.

That winter, Lacey surprised me. Two things happened that totally changed our progress. First, Erreplus came out with a new saddle that made a huge difference in how Lacey could use her back. Second, I added a new osteopath into her bodywork regime, along with her regular chiropractic and massage therapy. She felt like a whole new horse! Suddenly, she was able to collect in a way she never had before. The dream of Grand Prix started to glimmer again in the back of my mind.

I kept my expectations low, and stuck to a “We will see what happens” mentality. By spring, Lacey was starting to piaffe and passage, as well as do one tempis. We started with IA at the first show, then added IB at the next. By the third show, we made it through the I2 test. That is the last test before Grand Prix! Did we do it well? Nope! The piaffe and passage buttons didn’t work as well in the show ring, and the ones were intermittent at best when I asked for them. But we made it through. Doing Medium Tour well will probably take a few more years; however, it was a valuable learning experience for us both, and still a great accomplishment.

Now Grand Prix is back on the table. There’s no timeline attached, and it isn’t a hard goal - it will happen if it happens; if Lacey wants to do it and if we can get there in our training. I have learned to enjoy the journey with her above all else, and will always be grateful to her for what she’s done with and for me. Everything that we may yet achieve is purely a bonus. Having that mindset has taken the stress away. Now I just take things one day at a time like Lacey does, enjoying our partnership and rides together.

We cannot set a specific timeframe when we are training horses and expect them to adhere to it. They are not going to be consistent, just like us. They have good days and bad. Their bodies feel better some days than others. One day they might be focused and excited to work, the next they might be triggered by the full moon and you can barely get them around the ring. The only thing we can expect them to be is consistently inconsistent.

As we come to realize this, we can begin to accept that it’s their timeline, not ours. That our goals and plans need to be flexible. We can set a plan and loosely aim, but we must always be ready to adjust the plan to match our horse’s needs on any given day.  When we can say “It would be nice to work on this today” instead of “We must work on this today,” we can come into each ride with an open mind and not pressure our horses unrealistically if they can’t meet our expectations that day.

Strict expectations are the fastest road to disappointment, as life rarely goes exactly how we think it should. The next time your horse is being “difficult” or you’re facing a challenge in your timeline, ask yourself if you are working with them, or expecting them to work with you?