Plan your work and work your plan. Businesses have taught this advice to their employees for many years. It is also a very good approach to training your horse. To know this concept and to recognize its value is one thing; to effectively implement it is, however, quite another.
Let us, just as an illustration, assume you plan a trip by car from Houston, Texas to Vail, Colorado next Christmas. Of course you would not even attempt planning such a trip unless you will be in Houston at that time, if you can find Vail on the map, if you know how to drive a car, and if you are aware of the conditions you might encounter driving in the mountains in winter. If you cannot answer yes to knowing all of these, I suggest you fly.
     This example shows the very simplest form of planning. You have a start, a finish, and very predictable conditions. By comparison, planning to train a horse is more like preparing for a trip around the world. There are so many situations you cannot predict and plan for that must be dealt with on the spot as they occur. Therefore, quick thinking and flexibility are more valuable than rigid planning no matter how analytically it was done. When the trip becomes too long, or conditions are subject to change at any moment, or both, then planning turns into goal setting.
     Let us assume you are an experienced rider and you have this wonderful dressage prospect. He is four years old, looks all athlete, moves like a dream, and has a great mind. When asked how far you would like (expect) him to go, do not say, “As far as I can take him.” Instead say, “My goal for him is Grand Prix.” You are not boasting. You are just stating a goal. There is the possibility that you may not reach it, but you feel your horse is capable of it, and so are you! If your horse is thirteen years old and struggling at second level and you say, “Grand Prix,” you are not boasting either. You are simply out of touch with reality.
It takes about five years for a horse with the necessary talent and attitude to make it to Grand Prix. That adds up to about twelve hundred to fifteen hundred training sessions. It is impossible to plan that many rides in advance, and even if you could, you would probably have to start revising your plan after the second ride. You are working with a living, feeling animal that has a mind of its own and did not sign a contract to behave according to your expectations. Your long range plans therefore must be stated in general terms. They act as guidelines and motivators to stay on course. They also remind you to avoid shortcuts and not to ignore problems. While these problems may not matter much to you at the time, the experienced rider knows that you will be confronted with the same problems later in your work, at which time they may be more difficult to deal with than they are now.
     Here is the good news. You are not the first person to train a horse! Many others have done it before and left us their thoughts and experiences by which to be guided. The best example is the Training Pyramid. This system to train horses in the first two years of work is the result of thirty years of the German Cavalry schools preparing their remounts for work on the parade grounds as well as the battlefield. During these two years they trained their horses from the very start to a level of