SmartPak Monday Morning Feed: Setting Goals for the Summer Show Season

Summer show season is in full swing — have you set you goals for the season? Here are some tips for developing goals as you move forward.

By SmartPaker Annina McMillan

Photo by Alana Harrison Photography

I always stride to improve my riding, and I love using the summer show season to compare my own personal improvement between me and my horse. It’s also a great reminder that I am improving, when comparing how I did last season or even from the start of the season. As a planner, I love looking ahead and seeing what I can accomplish, and seeing what I need to do to make my goals happen.

Whether your horse has lots of experience or is very green, it’s your first show season, or you’re an old pro in the show ring there are lots of goals you can work towards. These goals will look different for everyone, depending on your own riding level, your horse’s experience level, and what you are personally working towards.

We already recommend working with your trainer as well when discussing your riding goals – I know keeping my trainer looped in with my personal goals allows us to better structure lessons, plan which shows to attend, and work together to accomplish so much more than I would on my own.

Goal Tip #1: Focus Your Goals on What You Can Control

To help make sure my goals are achievable for my horse and myself I have to remind myself to focus on goals in my control. What does this mean? I goal that I would consider outside of my control is winning a certain class. When it comes to placing I have no control on how well others perform (and I wish everyone the best of luck!), so I have no way to guarantee myself a win. I can however, focus on my own performance. Maybe that’s making sure I don’t try to launch from the long spot at every fence, or I work on getting my dressage free walk to be better quality (improve those 5’s to a 6), or working on my timing for cross country. With these kinds of goals, regardless of how my other competitors are doing, I can have something specific to accomplish that is in my control.

Plus, I’m often lucky enough to be riding against my friends, who I also wish to have a the best ride possible at every event. Making controllable goals keeps me competitive with the one person that matters most- myself!

Goal Tip #2: Embrace Flexibility

As always with horses, something can come up that throws a wrench in the plans– both good and bad. Sometimes, things are working out so well for me and my horse, so maybe I reach certain goals sooner and need to make new ones, which is awesome! But, on the flip side, and more heartbreaking, is when things go poorly. My normally calm, cool, collected green horse was terrified of the judge’s stand, which we had no way of knowing since we didn’t have one at home. While I knew he was more than capable of doing the movements in our dressage test, I also knew that it wasn’t in either of our best interest to force him to perform. Moments like that might mean we need to take some steps back, do some schooling shows at a lower level to work on making the judge’s stand not so scary.

Admittedly, flexibility in this way isn’t always as fun as accomplishing goals faster, but it’s definitely important to be as flexible as possible when things do come up. For me, working with my trainer to adjust plans is one thing that helps keep my progress going. It might not always be progress down the same path, but progress down the ‘Judge’s Stand Confidence’ path is just as important as progress down the ‘Leg Yields’ path if I want us both to enjoy showing!

Goal Tip #3: Make S.M.A.R.T. goals

It’s so secret here at SmartPak, we’re fans of smart things! When thinking about goals, there is no better way than to use the acronym “S.M.A.R.T.” to set goals for our equestrian endeavors – and the S.M.A.R.T. frame work can be use in other areas as well, such as professional goals, wellness goals, and more!

SMART stands for:

Specific: I want to increase my horse’s free walk scores from 5s to 6sMeasurable: I’ll see progress and improvement in the increase in my dressage test scores

Attainable: We all have to start somewhere, shooting for a 10 on our free walk in a season is not realistic for a nervous horse, but it feels pretty attainable to go from a 5 to regularly scoring 6s.

Relevant: This is related to larger goals, because increasing my walk scores means I’ve encouraged a more relaxed horse at the walk, which results in better overall test scores. A more relaxed horse and better scores are both steps toward working up to the next level.

Time Based: I hope to increase our free walk scores to 6s by the end of the show season in approximately October

By utilizing the S.M.A.R.T. framework, I can better track my goals, target my performance, and make easier adjustments. Broad goals such as “Improve My Dressage Score” while are what I do want, make it harder to track and refine. Do I focus on trot work? Do I focus on our canter? Is it our transitions? And so on. While in lessons we do focus on all of the above, having a targeted one that is attainable helps provide focus and make sure I am consistently working on relaxing my horse at the walk. Plus, since the free walk in dressage tests often have a multiplier of 2, improvements there will have a greater impact on my overall dressage store.
These are my three tips when crafting goals for the Summer Show Season. I also use this same method during the winter off season to work on some specific things before the following season. These tips are flexible and can work in a few different ways – even if you have no intention to show, showing is a long way off, or your horse is too green to show.

Annina and Titan. Photo courtesy of SmartPak.

We also welcome more tips, so if anyone has more goal tips, please feel free to share them in the Facebook comments.