I have a lot of goals for the horses, and I thought that I would share them with you.
When I say Spring horse goals, I mean ones that I want to work at through the spring, and have completed by Summer- or earlier.
It is kind of hard to plan goals for Bonnie, I planned some goals for Bonnie just last month, and if I followed those goals through, and did only the things written for each month, It would be May or June by now! To be fair, I was still afraid of her head throws, and I didn’t want to plan to big. This time I will take a bigger leap, and set some goals that will have me trying!
As stated in some of my previous posts, I would like to take Bonnie out on a trail ride by spring. I think if I keep working with her, and training her, this will be something that I can actually accomplish! I’m so excited!
Ride Bonnie twice a week, if not twice a day!
Take Bonnie on a walk twice a week (provided the weather is good), and improve her ground manners.
Pick out Bonnie’s hooves before and after riding, and when I put her in her stall for the night; and while picking her hooves, “I would like to teach her to lift them better. Depending on how much I’m riding, this may be a bit of over-kill, and I should probably be pickin’ out her hooves at least once a day as it is, but sometimes that doesn’t happen. *Sigh*.
Teach Bonnie how to ground tie better. I plan on doing this on grain nights by pouring the grain into her grain feeder, but asking her to stand until I allow her to eat. I have done it a few times, and she is getting better each time! I hope that within a month or two of doing this with her, she will be pretty good at ground tying, I hope to go a lot farther with this!
Teach Bonnie to trot well. I have started teaching Bonnie to trot, I get Dexter to run ahead, and I ask Bonnie to trot, and she does a lot of the time. Afterwards I reward her with carrots, but in the future I would like to reward her with carrots, scratches, a walk, and a break from training (by break, I mean I will end that training session). I hope it helps!
Teaching Bonnie to lunge, I don’t know if I can teach Bonnie this by the end of Spring or not, but I sure am hoping. At the moment, I can get her to circle me, do to the liberty work I have been doing with Bonnie, so I am trying to build off of this. In the summer, I had Bonnie lunging within a week or two, but then something went wrong and we were not able to communicate with each other, so I am hopeful!
I’m sure I could think of a few more if I tried really hard, but these are the ones that are important to me, and that I am going to work hard to accomplish. Bonnie is a very smart pony, and she is capable of a lot, I just need to take a leap, try, and put in the time and effort.
What are your Spring horse goals?
Kayli and Bonnie
Kayli's Homestead 