I think I’ve finally figured it out. How to approach 2024, I mean.

My usual proclivity for outcome-based goal-setting just didn’t sit right this New Year.

Get to 12 endurance rides, enter a 100 late in the season, blah blah blah.

Of course, I’d love to do those things…but I’d have loved to do them last year, and the year before that, and all the years going back to 2015, which was the last time it actually happened.

Interestingly, all these years of not getting far in endurance haven’t kept me from going places with the horses. I’ve trained and learned, hacked and explored, and it was pleasant. It was fun. It meant something.

Very slowly, as I learned to look past what should have been and rest in what is, it dawned on me that I enjoy those things, too — in and of themselves, completely disconnected from the endurance trail.

Perhaps I have finally arrived at a place where I can let go of endurance as the primary goal. 

This is timely, because I think part of the reason I struggled with goal-setting for 2024 was that I was aware of the unlikelihood that a good endurance year is in the cards for me. 

Ledger, who injured a tendon last fall and has some recurrent back pain, faces a rehab period of unknown duration.

Jammer is eighteen and deconditioned after many years of dealing with headshaking syndrome, which has lately seemed to improve.

Bella is set to be bred this spring.

And Pixar, with his shady history of violently bucking people off, isn’t reliable yet.

So…who knows? Endurance isn’t out of the question, but it’s far from a foregone conclusion.

As I worked with all four horses over an unseasonably warm New Years weekend, the appropriate (and in hindsight, obvious) question finally crystallized: What is an appropriate and interesting path forward for each horse, starting where it actually is?

Notice I’m focusing on the direction, not the destination.

I haven’t forgotten the destination. The dream, if you will. I still hope Ledger will have a solid endurance career, including multi-days and 100s. I hope Jammer will find a twilight occupation back on the endurance trail. I hope Pixar will achieve the mental and physical reliability necessary for 50s.

But it’s the journey that interests me right now. It’s spending this year — which really means this month, this week, this day, this hour — focusing on the best next step.

In fact, I think that’s going to be my yearly theme: The Best Next Step.

Note that it’s the best next step, not the next best step. There’s nothing next-to or second-to best about it. Rather, the point is to thoughtfully consider the best step I can take next.

What’s the most important thing for this horse today? Maybe Ledger needs some handwalking over poles, some trick training to keep his mind engaged, and some rhythmic backing. Maybe he just needs his feet trimmed. Maybe we only have time for a few carrot stretches and a kiss on the nose.

It all matters. All the little steps, the attentiveness to what is important today. That’s where we’ll focus.

The Best Next Step: It’s a process, not an outcome. I realize that skillful goal-setting typically involves both. But this year, the outcomes are so uncertain that they can serve only as a vague horizon, somewhere out there, in soft focus, not worth stressing about. We’ll get there when (if) we get there.

And in the meantime? Well. You’ll find us taking the best next step.