Horse Illustrated Magazine

Being an equestrian and a horse owner is a time-consuming and expensive lifestyle. Because of this, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that riding, horse ownership, and your time at the barn is only one section of the fulfilling life that you lead. This is why goal setting is crucial as an equestrian.

Because so much time, energy, and money is invested into these creatures we love, frustration may creep in when the reality of other life responsibilities interferes. It’s important not to internalize these restraints and allow them to make you feel discouraged. Instead, you must recognize and include them as part of your goal setting in order to make your goals more attainable from the start.

Get Started with Goal Setting by Gaining Perspective

A helpful exercise that I use for horse owners and riders is to ask them to write down all the important sections of their life. Examples might be work, family, relationship, other pets, hobbies/sports outside of riding, et cetera. Oftentimes when you see how many things are on the page, you realize that there are quite a few people, animals, and other commitments vying for your attention.

This is a great way to put it all in perspective. When you’re at the barn, nailing those flying changes may feel like all that matters, but no matter how much you love riding, it’s just one piece of your much larger existence.

Most things in life end up needing to be a compromise. You may want to participate in all of the shows on the local circuit, purchase a competitive horse for the division or class you want to show in, master the sitting trot, or ride the perfect pattern, but all of those things require an investment of some kind. You must be honest with yourself about what resources you have available.

This situation also becomes difficult for the professionals guiding your equestrian journey. We never want to tell anyone they can’t do something; good trainers will build you up and encourage you every step of the way. But it’s also our job to manage expectations when a client mentions goals that we know to be outside of their scope of resources.

Setting Goals for Ownership and Showing

Goals can be set in any sector of equestrian sport. A common one is horse ownership. Other than buying a horse, there are many options available, including leasing, half-leasing, care leases, or riding school horses.

Just as horse ownership causes you to compromise by allocating resources (i.e. time and money), choosing one of the other options may take less resources, but requires compromise on how many times you ride per week, how high you jump, what movements you school, et cetera. However, all of the above options will help you continue to grow as a rider.

Other common goals center around showing. Rated horse shows can be extremely costly, plus paying your trainer and your own travel expenses.

I find the best way to get the most out of show season isn’t to only commit to one show at a time, but rather to present your trainer with a show budget for the year that is reasonable to you.

From there, the two of you can brainstorm and put together a calendar of shows that fit your schedule, finances, and goals. This way you can also plan to use those shows to build to some sort of “peak.”

For example, if you can afford six shows for the year, your trainer may decide it would be better to do a cluster of three in the spring and three in the fall so that you get into a rhythm rather than just showing once every other month.

It’s also important to mention that not every rider enjoys showing, and that is totally fine. No one should ever make you feel “less than” for that.

Setting Smaller Goals as an Equestrian

The secret to equestrian goal setting is to use the time you have in the saddle to work on the basics that need brushing up. Rather than having a grandiose goal such as “I want to show in X class,” break down what would be needed to be successful in that class: A better sense of canter rhythm, tighter turns, cleaner lead changes—whatever it is, all of these things are achievable with basic exercises that can be done both inside and outside of a lesson.

Dedicating even 15 minutes of each ride to improving the basics you have targeted will result in reaching the next level. As your foundation builds and your basics and communication with your horse improve, more and more doors will open.

From a sports psychology standpoint, achieving lots of smaller goals on the way to the larger goal will make the journey much more rewarding!

Potential and Comparison

Another common occurrence when setting goals is feeling “I’m not using my horse to his full potential.”  The horse has no idea if he was born with fantastic bloodlines, perfect conformation, or great aptitude for a certain discipline. The only thing he knows is whether he has food, water and shelter, and whether his handlers treat him kindly or roughly.

Your horse doesn’t understand the significance of Finals or the World Show, the difficulty level of the exercise at home or class at the show, the color of a ribbon, nor the concept of what could be. Equines are very lucky to live in the now, and we humans could learn a thing or two!

Where do we as humans get these ideas of what we should be doing? Usually by looking around and comparing ourselves to friends, barn mates, and social media influencers. What they say about social media is true, though: people tend to only post the good.

This is also the case for what people tend to allow others to see in real life. Generally, only a person’s immediate family and closest friends will know about all of their fears, struggles, and hard work. The rest of the world tends to only see the very biggest failures and triumphs, and even those fade from the collective memory of society very quickly.

Social media just happens to be a place where all the happy and colorful win photos are curated and posted, whether you as a viewer have had the best day or the worst day. However, what you don’t know is what the other person gave up to be at the show, to buy the horse, or to finally be able to execute that upper-level movement.

The person posting could have sold their car, missed important family events, cried driving home from the barn for six months after tough lessons, or endured injuries and layups for their horse. Just because those parts of the journey are kept quiet doesn’t mean we don’t all go through them.

Key Takeaway

Overall, as an equestrian, it’s crucial to set goals that fit into the big picture of your life. Riding is supposed to be fun, and our relationship with horses should bring joy. If the time we have at the barn is spent stressing or rushing, then something needs to be adjusted. Throughout all of it, take comfort from your horsey friends and your trainer to help guide you through this balancing act that is the equestrian experience.

This article about equestrian goal setting appeared in the January/February 2024 issue of Horse Illustrated magazine. Click here to subscribe!