Track Progress

Like the old truism says, "if you don't know where you're going, any path will take you there!" Likewise, "it's hard to map out a journey without having a clear starting point." These concepts couldn't be more true when it comes to mastering your own unique horse & rider journey. Different teaching techniques, instructor styles, and the almost endless books, articles, videos and other resources you draw upon can easily confuse and frustrate to a point where you're no longer sure of where you are on this journey, not to mention where you're trying to go. Our Track Progress section is designed to help you objectively assess where you are, clearly state where you'd like to go, and help recommend and organize the best resources available to help you on your way. It also provides, as the name implies, a quick and easy way to track progress so you can begin to build upon lessons learned in an effective and orderly manner.

Whether we're talking about Dressage, Hunter-Jumper, or even Ground Manners training, we believe the key is to view each lesson, and the movements contained therein, as building blocks that can be mastered, easily repeated to stay sharp, and then built upon so that together the horse and rider move closer to the goal in a measurable way.

Unbridled Rider offers you 3 ways to track progress toward mastery:

1. My Journal – Keep a free-form journal of your goals, planned events, inspirations, issues, or just general musings.
2. My Lessons – Record lessons that you take, to remember what the lesson focused on, what the homework was, what you should keep in mind, your coach’s comments, and your rider experience.
3. Assessments – Track your horse & rider progress numerically in any or all of three focus areas - Dressage, Hunter Jumper and/or Ground Manners. Assess yourself at each level, each movement within each level, and individual qualities within each movement. You’ll then be provided with a Harvey Ball representation of your level of mastery so that, at a glance, you can see where you stand. Every time you redo an assessment, that revision is recorded and saved so that you can see where you were when you started and how far you’ve come.

On a scale of 0 to 4 (0 being “Not Introduced”, 4 being “Solid” in the movement) how would you score yourself and your horse as a team in performing Counter Canter, jumping Complex Grids or having your horse Yield from Lightest Pressure when you’re standing beside him? We invite you to Sign Up and assess yourself and your horse in all levels of the areas you’d like to focus on. You might be surprised at what you see.