01/09/2026
Absolutely love this and had to share. 💛
It really resonates with me. Life happens, things often take longer than we planned, and both horse and rider need time to learn, develop and grow. Goals are important, but so is appreciating where we are along the way.
“Love the sport, but love your horse more.” 💛
Does it actually matter how long it takes us to reach a goal… or even if we ever reach it at all?
We all set goals with our horses. The next level, the qualification, the better score, that movement we’ve been working on forever 🙈
But training horses isn’t an exact science. Life happens. Horses happen. Plans change. What we thought would take six months takes two years, and sometimes it never happens at all.
And let’s cut the crap and the lovey dovey stuff for a minute and actually be real about it…
Probably 0.01% of us have any chance of achieving our absolute ultimate goal.
Most of us aren’t going to the Olympics. We aren’t going to ride Grand Prix. We aren’t going to win everything we enter. Sometimes we won’t even achieve the goal that, on paper, looked completely achievable.
That’s horses.
But does knowing that mean we stop pushing?
I don’t think so.
I’m ambitious. I want to improve. I want to win. I want better scores and I want to see just how far I can go. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with admitting that.
But there has to be a balance between pushing for what could be and appreciating what actually is.
Maybe the goal changes. Maybe it takes five times longer than planned. Maybe we never quite get there.
Does that mean we failed?
Or perhaps the whole point is seeing just how far we can get while enjoying the horse underneath us along the way.
Horses don’t know our deadlines, our percentages or what level we think we should be at.
So… do we accept what is, or keep pushing for what could be?
I think maybe we need a bit of both.
