One of the hardest things for me being a trainer that works a “regular” day job with training and teaching lessons on the side, is staying motivated to ride whether is be before, after or on my days off from work. I have 3 of my own horses I need to ride or work regularly and find it sometimes hard. My horses are all at different levels and being ridden or worked in a different way.I have come up with a couple of ways that are helping me to keep myself motivated.
Since my work schedule in not 100% consistent, I have to plan ahead with my riding and training schedule. I have several calendars that I write things down on (I am very much old school when it comes to pen and paper and writing things down), I have a white board in the barn/tack room that I use to write the horses names on and mark them off as I ride them.
I sometimes don’t like to ride as often as I should because I ride by myself and I don’t have an arena to train in (which always makes things a little harder), I haul out to a buddy’s arena to ride in and take or meet a friend there to ride with and help me if I am stuck or just to watch me ride (to see if there is something I am missing and can’t see it because I am on the horse).
The final way I help to motivate myself to ride is I set goals (short term and long term). I want to get colts ready for the new race season and the only way to do that is to ride them. I have a 3 year old that I need to start riding and a 4 year old I need to ride consistently and start hauling; I also have my current horse that I need to kepp legged up and conditioned.
