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Ashley Johnson

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SMART Goals for April with Ashley Johnson

Ashley Johnson and Tactical Maneuver. Photo by Leslie Threlkeld.

SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Trackable. With life changing daily across the country right now, most of us will be spending a lot of time training at home this month. For some of us the ability to take regular lessons or travel to practice and school at different venues will not be possible. For many riders who board their horses, going to the barn may even become a limited activity. It could be an easy month to feel unsure about what type of training to do or to feel stuck in a rut. Using SMART Goals will help boost your confidence and purpose!

First, consider the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic goals. Extrinsic goals focus on ‘be good’ outcomes and performances. One example of an extrinsic goal is challenging yourself to canter a line of cavaletti jumps in five strides, then six strides, then four strides. Intrinsic goals focus on ‘get better’ outcomes and these goals relate more to building competence and mastery. An example of an intrinsic goal is deciding to practice leg yields during two different rides in a week. Both types of goals are useful.

Right now it is the beginning of a new month. All competitions are shut down for the foreseeable future. It is a very good time to set goals that center around intrinsic motivation and are authentic to your own riding. As you gain more mastery, your performance will improve and your extrinsic goals will be more attainable as well. With this in mind, brainstorm a few Specific goals for the next four weeks. Write them down. Be open minded. Perhaps your goal is to create a better independent hand and seat so that you have more strength over jumps, or perhaps
your goal is to maintain core fitness and flexibility for riding at home even when you can’t make it to the barn.

Ashley Johnson and Tactical Maneuver. Photo by Leslie Threlkeld.

Next, think about how Measurable your goals are. For me, this usually centers around how many days during the week I am going to work on a different skill set. When I teach my horses to do flying changes, for example, I often decide that I will practice changes three days a week. During at least two of those rides, I only do a few flying changes. I just touch on them and then move on to other things so that my horse doesn’t feel frazzled. For riders who maybe can’t make it to the barn as often as they would like, a great goal might be to do yoga two days a week to improve balance and flexibility and go for a run three days a week to maintain cardiovascular fitness.

As far as Actionable, think about the resources you have available to you this month. I was just talking to one of my students about her training program for her preliminary level OTTB for the weeks ahead. He needs to become stronger in dressage, but he also really likes variety and doesn’t like getting drilled. She is going to be riding at home all month. I suggested she place a cavaletti jump in the middle of a flat area and on some days not do a traditional dressage ride but instead ride him in the open, cantering the cavaletti on a large circle in both a working and lengthen canter to practice balance, rhythm, and rideability. This will help him to stay fresh and engaged in his work.

Ashley Johnson and Tactical Maneuver. Photo by Leslie Threlkeld.

Making a goal Relevant will improve your own motivation to pursue it. When I coach, I am amazed at how many students come to me not really having any idea of what they would like to improve. The more you understand clearly the areas that you would like to improve, the more you can create goals that will help your riding to flourish.

Lastly, make your goals Trackable. For the month of April, write down week by week what you would like to do to reach your goal, and a vision of where you want to be with this goal by the end of the month. Then, each week as you do what you had set out to do, check it off your list and write a small reflection about how the week went. If one week doesn’t go as well as planned, think about why that was, and regroup for the next week.

In riding we always need to be ready to change from plan A to plan B. This month, our innate resilience as event riders will be put to the test in other areas of our life as well. For many, this will be a very challenging time, but perhaps with the right outlook, this time can be used to grow in our riding through setting creative goals and working towards them!

Photo by Ashley Johnson.

Ashley Johnson is a 5* Event Rider and an ICP Level III Certified Instructor. She is based in Ocala, FL and coaches the University of Florida’s Eventing Team. Ashley is pursuing a master’s degree in psychology through Harvard University’s HES School with a focus on sports psychology. If you would like a customized at-home training program with video and phone call accountability check-ins, contact Ashley at [email protected].

Ashley Johnson: Polishing Your Pearl

Ashley Johnson and Tactical Maneuver, clear around their first four-star at Rolex 2016. Photo by Shannon Brinkman.

Sometimes in life, all of the puzzle pieces seem to magically fall together in one wonderful moment or sequence of moments and amazing results occur. More often, however, we must polish our pearls. Pearls are created when a grain of rough sand becomes embedded in the interior mantle of an oyster, causing the oyster irritation. The oyster then deposits calcium carbonate in iridescent, concentric layers to smooth the rough edges of the grain of sand. Over time the pearl grows, with each layer creating more depth and luster, and making the end product more beautiful.

Developing a skill, such as becoming a better rider or training a better horse, requires the same type of perseverance, grit, and long-term outlook as forming a pearl. Often times I see students not understanding or becoming frustrated by this process. Take cross country schooling, for example. In the Ocala area we are extremely lucky. We have at least half a dozen excellent places to go school cross country. Because of this, students often overlook that the real education is developed not by how many different venues we can visit, but in the baby phases of skill work.

Ashley Johnson and Tactical Maneuver. Photo by Leslie Threlkeld.

I call it learning the alphabet. What is most important is to take a horse or a rider and teach them the basic principles of different types of jumps, i.e. what is water, what is a bank, what is a ditch, how do you jump a narrow face, how do you ride up and down hills, what types of jumps might surprise a horse, when will a rider need a slipped rein, what is the correct pace, balance and line for different types of jumps, how does a rider maintain a balanced position and then stay out of the horse’s way in the air over a jump, the timing of how to apply leg pressure for support in the correct moment, and of course being able to assess if your horse is looking at and seeing what you are asking it to jump.

All of these skills are far more important to become comfortable with than merely going and blindly jumping different jumps at different venues, but they take more time, thought, and accountability as well. At the end of the day, the challenge of the sport is to replicate correct performance in any venue, on any course, including courses we have never jumped before. In order to do this, the foundation of the types of questions and the types of rides that a rider needs to produce must be the most solid element.

Ashley Johnson and Tactical Maneuver. Photo by Leslie Threlkeld.

All of this education takes time. Sometimes it takes more time, sometimes it takes less time, sometimes there are setbacks. In 2011 I formed a partnership with a 6-year-old off-track Thoroughbred and took him to his first horse trials. Today, after six years of partnership with my now 4* partner Tactical Maneuver, a.k.a. Gucci, I can still say we have not reached the best performance that I believe we both could produce. In 2016 we jumped clean around the 4* in Kentucky. Last spring we had a fall jumping into water which derailed our spring season. This fall we jumped confidently around the 3* at Fair Hill. Each season brings new education. On the days we have to walk away, I still gain new insight and skills, and each time we complete a major event, I am incredibly grateful for the combined foundation and trust we share, and of course our mutual love of the game.

In a larger sense, both the horse world and life in general requires us to polish our pearls. One proverb states, “In every life some rain must fall.” No matter how lucky we are, there will be moments of hardship and growth in life. Any true horseman understands that mastering our own skills will always be our hardest challenge. In these moments, remember that sometimes it is that tiny grain of sand that gets under our skin and irritates us that will in the end produce our most beautiful product.

Ashley Johnson and Tactical Maneuver. Photo by Shannon Brinkman.

University of Florida Launches Eventing Team

The University of Florida Eventing Team. Photo by Pam Johnson. The University of Florida Eventing Team. Photo by Pam Johnson.

The idea of bringing an eventing team to the University of Florida was first kicked around at the end of the fall semester in 2015.  With the rise of collegiate eventing, adding a team at UF made sense. We have a very strong pre-vet and equine program and are 40 minutes from Ocala, one of the biggest eventing centers in the country.

In the spring of 2016, the UF Equestrian Club voted Anna Moscovitz and Ted Britten-Kelly to be co-captains, and I am honored to be the inaugural coach. The UF team operates under the larger umbrella of the UF Equestrian Team.

First, we registered UF with the USEA Intercollegiate Program as an affiliate university. The USEA’s Intercollegiate program is brand new and still has that new car smell. Then we started looking for competitions to attend. There are several Intercollegiate Challenge competitions set up in Area III, including at Poplar Place and Chattahoochee Hills, but there were none in Florida.

The team also took a look at the viability of competing at schooling shows in the area. We knew we were going to have a broad range of riders with different experience levels, and we wanted to have options for riders new to the sport but also be able to meet the needs of the more skilled and experienced riders, and we wanted to be able to compete against other universities.

After some thought, the founding members agreed to take a move out of Field of Dreams. If we build it, they will come. In early August, we reached out to Richard Trayford of Equiventures. To our great delight, he enthusiastically supported the idea of an Intercollegiate Challenge in Florida and agreed to host us at the Ocala Fall Horse Trials on October 15 at the Florida Horse Park.

We currently have one UF team registered for this competition with two Beginner Novice riders and one Preliminary level rider. We are waiting to hear which other schools will be fielding teams, but we are up and running and off to a great start.

As intercollegiate eventing is relatively new, there are not very many places that run Intercollegiate Challenges. This may seem like a negative, but it allows us room to build, in both the quality and quantity of competitions and in the number of schools that participate. This year, in preparation for the Oct. 15 challenge, co-captain Ted Britten-Kelly started reaching out to other schools with known programs, as well as every Florida school that runs an equestrian program.

The Ocala region is the center of a large number of rated and unrated horse trials. There are usually two schooling shows every month within a one-hour drive at Longwood, Rocking Horse and the Florida Horse Park. Additionally, during the fall and winter season there are plenty of sanctioned USEA horse trials at the Florida Horse Park and Rocking Horse.

We also have the brand new CIC3* at the Ocala Jockey Club over Thanksgiving weekend, as well as two events at Three Lakes at Caudle Ranch in Groveland in January and February. Ted also approached UCF’s Eventing Team captain about approaching Caudle Ranch to turn one or both of their winter shows into Intercollegiate Challenges.

With such a large number of events taking place and the fact that college eventers will travel greater distances than other equestrian teams to compete, it is only a matter of time before Florida’s other schools start forming their own teams. The number one concern Ted heard from other schools who don’t yet have eventing teams is the lack of eventers in their clubs.  From our experience with forming UF’s team, if the school has an eventing team, the students that event will join.

With our mild weather and excellent access to top caliber shows during the school year, we have no doubt that Florida will become the top spot for collegiate eventing in the country.