H1/2014 Results - and Outlook

Usually, companies are announcing half year results around July. As we are already in August, it is time to mid year review of our goals as well as the results achieved:

2014 has been a great year so far. We have already been to 8 shows (til end of July), some of them were even pretty successful. We had 25 entries in first, second and something between second and third level called LM in Austria. We are pretty close to reaching our next milestone license wise, only two results in second level are missing such that we can officially enter LM (remember the first one between second and third level in Austria). We got a first point for even the next license with a first result over 62% in LM (which we did not even dare dreaming of beginning of the year)!

We made huge progress in trot work as rhythm and contact keep improving. Some days, walk is even as good as it is at home. I managed to make a huge step forward with my show nerves. We got our trailer and a complete design of it.

Drawbacks are still canter work (oh man that is ugly sometimes) and Hafl’s willingness and ability to collect.

Nevertheless, we could in H1 already achieve more than half of the goals we set earlier this year:

My goals hanging on my kitchen memo board - so I can see them every day!


- Riding on the beach: done in March

- Winning Second Level Test: done

- Entering LM level: overachieved with even getting placed third!


- Participation in the Regionals: done and successfully placed in LM level

- A horse trailer: Overachieved with even getting it customized and almost finished


What we need to do now is to revise these goals and add some more – otherwise, H2/2014 will be rather boring. To keep ourselves challenged, we still aim for another entry in LM level, a placement in Dressurtour Steiermark among the Top 20 in first/second level ranking (~5 entries to go), we aim for Top 100 in Austrian Dressage Rider Ranking in first level (currently, placed 127 – results between July 15 and August 15 still missing), Top 250 in second level (currently 449 after a huge step the past month – making up for 300 places at once!), overall, we should settle somewhere around 1000 (currently place 1,172). In the Austrian Haflinger Ranking, we do not have an aim yet, as we have no visibility to interim results. We also need to finish the Austrian Haflinger Challenge (no good outlook on an entry in the finals as we had a rather bad placement in the first round of this challenge, one missing which will take place end of September), the Carinthian Dressage Cup for Haflinger horses (won first part, still two entries to go in October).

There are possibly 7 horse shows to go (1 was already last weekend, meaning until first week of August we had 8 shows and 27 entries – compared to 40 overall last year) with another 16 entries to go (landing somewhere around 43 entries overall). Next year, we will not ride that many shows anymore as we want to concentrate and ride strategically some specific cups and tours (more on that next year ;) )

We need to get the last two points for the next license and aim for another point for the third license (which will be the goal for 2015/16).

From a mental point of view, I need to be less self-critical. If the judges are ok with my riding, I should not question and dislike it so much!

From a training perspective, we need to focus on that stupid canter and the extensions in trot – after knowing that there are some muscular problems, we will also get them fixed with the help of our physiotherapist – beginning this week.

Though it seems that there are many things accomplished already, there is still a lot to do in the last few months of this show season and the second half of this year. Good, otherwise, I would be bored anyway ;)

Yesterday's prize giving ceremony - more to come on this show in one of the next show reports
Thanks to all the supporters, without you reaching my goals would be simply impossible! <3

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