Goals!

I've been a bit lazy about posting, but I finally have some goals. On July 19, I'm aiming to take Tango to our first event of the season at Riga Meadow, which is none to far away in Salisbury, CT. From the virtual walk, it looks like it will be a good place to start the year off. After that, I'm hoping to take him out to Millbrook... of course, we'll have to make sure water is no longer an issue there!
I hopped on him for the first time on Tueday, and to my surprise, my back felt pretty good. I didn't do too much... just a little flat work followed by a half hour on the trail. Yesterday I got on again. We did about 20 minutes of flat work, working on loops at the canter and stretching in the trot. He did some nice leg yeilding and shoulder-ins... over all, I was pleased with what I got out of him, and not wanting to do to much myself, I took him out for a nice long hack. We went out for about 40 minutes, did some trotting up the hills and through the woods. I do love hacking that horse... he's definately got a good head on his shoulders, thank goodness. Julie hopped on him on Monday, and I was very pleased with him. We did some trot poles, working on adjusting the stride a little bit, and he was absolutely wonderful about it. Here's some photos from that:







Next week will be week four of work for him, and we're going to pop over his first little fences. I figure I'll let Julie do that, since it's probably not a GREAT idea for me to be jumping just yet... especially since he jumps so hard. Pretty soon, though!
I'm also going to get ahold of Jen to see if we can do a lesson next weekend, and the week after, I'd like to try to haul him up to Stephie's for some jump work.
Here is my tentative event schedule for him for the next few months:
July 19: Riga Meadow H.T. - Salisbury, CT
August 6 - 9: Millbrook H.T. - Millbrook, NY
August 16 - Kent H.T. - Kent, CT
August 23 - Great Vista HT - Fort Plain, NY
September 5-6 - Town Hill HT - Lakeville, CT
September 10-12 - King Oak HT - EastHampton, MA
October 4 - Kent HT - Kent, CT

we'll see how that goes! I'm going to pick and choose among those.
In conclusion, here are pictures of the ladies in the barn, Casper, Roxy and Summer: