From: LeeAnne
Dear Jessica, I need to ask you something that I can't talk to my friends about because they won't even know what I'm talking about, because they all ride hunters and some jumpers. I ride hunters, and that's what I've always done since I learned to ride. I love it. I am seventeen now. My trainer is a very good trainer and has been working with me and my horse for almost three years now. We do very well at the shows. Now my trainer has this idea in her head that I need to do some eventing! She took some lessons last year from this event rider and she and went to three events in the summer, and says that she'll keep doing it, not all the time but once in a while because she thinks it's really good for her training and her horses. Now she wants me to plan to go to an event with my horse. I don't know if I want to do this. He is a hunter and he is very good at being a hunter. Won't it confuse him if we do something so different? Help! This probably doesn't seem like a very big deal but to me it is a very very big deal, because I really like my trainer a lot and usually she is right about things but sometimes not and I think that this may be one of the "not" times. What do you think? LeeAnne
As for what I think - I'm hoping that you'll decide to give eventing a try. I wish that all hunter riders had the chance to try eventing. At the lowest level, it's not going to be frightening or terribly demanding, but to do it, you'll need skills that you may not have developed for the hunter ring. If you foxhunt in addition to showing hunters in the ring, you'll already have most of those skills. If not... keep reading.
Since you show hunters, you've no doubt already developed style and poise on horseback, and you're well aware of the importance of your own turnout and your horse's appearance. You've learned how to figure out and find your best spot for each jump, and you're good at getting your horse to take the lead you want after each jump. You've used those skills over and over in indoor and outdoor arenas, and if you're very lucky, you may even have ridden somewhere over an outside course. Those are good things to know how to do, but there's a lot more to riding than that.
Eventing is great fun because, as they say, "Eventers do it Three Ways, Three Days!" You get three different competitions for the price of one: a dressage competition, a cross-country competition, and a show-jumping competition. At the lowest levels, all of the phases may be done in a single day and out of order - dressage followed by show jumping followed by cross-country, instead of the traditional order of dressage followed by cross-country followed by show jumping. The order really won't matter, especially if you're just giving eventing a try so that you can improve yourself and your horse. And make no mistake: eventing CAN help you improve! Preparing yourself for each phase means learning and practicing different skills, all of which will help you and your horse. You don't have to become a full-time eventer, but do take the discipline of eventing seriously enough to learn and apply the skills in a safe way.
The show-jumping phase won't be very different from the work you already do. You may want to get your horse used to tighter turns and odd-looking, colourful jumps, but you can do that by rearranging your own jumps and hanging towels over them to make them look odd and unfamiliar.
The dressage phase will help you with your accuracy and precision. Your horse will canter a courtesy circle before you start a hunter round, and you probably have no trouble at all getting him to start the canter, but to do well in dressage, you'll have to be able to get your transitions smoothly AND at a precise point marked by a letter. There's a big, big difference between "pick up a canter somewhere on the circle", and "canter at A", or even "Canter between K and A". You'll be riding every stride in a way that may be unfamiliar to you, but it's a very good thing to be able to do.
The cross-country phase - the heart of eventing - is probably the most difficult for riders whose only previous experience has been in the hunter ring. When you ride cross-country, you're alone and you're out of sight of your trainer. Unless you're an incredibly fast runner or a very clever strategist, you won't have had the chance to see horses jump every one of the cross-country jumps. You definitely won't have had the chance to watch one horse, much less multiple horses, go over ALL the jumps. And your horse won't have seen ANY of the jumps in advance - there's no schooling over the course, and no hacking on the course, before the event. Every jump will be a surprise, and it will be your job to prepare your horse to deal with each jump by setting him up for it in advance.
Setting a horse up on cross-country isn't a matter of counting strides and asking for takeoff NOW. It's a matter of finding a comfortable, ground-covering pace at which your horse will rate easily, so that he can compress or stretch without great effort and without a change in his rhythm or tempo. It's also a matter of riding over terrain! If you're accustomed to groomed sand arenas that are flat or nearly so, and have limited experience jumping on grass, a cross-country course can come as quite a shock. A horse that jumps 3'6" easily in the ring may find it difficult to canter up a hill, jump a 2' fence, and canter down the other side of the hill - all of that requires balance that your horse may not have yet. A horse that sails over a solid 3' jump in a flat arena may have no idea how to jump that same fence if it's set up on the side of a hill. A horse that can lengthen or shorten its stride easily on the flat (when the flat is REALLY flat) may have a great deal of difficulty doing the same thing if it's cantering uphill or downhill. All of these are skills that come easily to horses IF the horses are given the chance to learn them - and that means that you'll need to prepare by riding out, riding up and down hills, practicing shortening and lengthening on those hills, and practicing JUMPING before, on, and after hills. You'll need to learn a slightly different position - not as forward, but a little more upright and slightly behind your leg. And you'll need to learn to trust your horse in some new ways.
Eventing is a lovely sport for developing horses' minds as well as their bodies. The horse that takes off perfectly when you've set him up for each jump in the hunter ring is one thing; the horse that can find his own best takeoff spot for each jump on the cross-country course is quite another. You'll get into trouble if you insist on hand-riding to each jump, counting strides, and trying to ask for a specific moment of take-off. Cross-country jumping requires a partnership of a different kind. You don't dictate the number of strides or the precise moment of takeoff; instead, you ride the horse forward and round so that he can make the takeoff decision himself in the last few strides. You can't be overcontrolling - but you also can't race toward the jump and throw away the reins! I've found that when you're starting to event, a good rule of thumb is to bring the horse in to each jump at a slower, controlled, round and bouncy canter, then to add a little leg for the last three strides. This will let the horse meet each jump on an increasing stride, in balance, with plenty of energy and power, and the ability to make any necessary adjustments while you sit quietly.
In the world of show hunters, it's sometimes tempting to take charge of every stride, telling the horse what to do before, over, and after each jump. Eventing serves as an excellent reminder that you are in charge until takeoff and after landing, but that whilst the horse is jumping, the HORSE is in charge and you need to be quiet, balanced, and as non-interfering as possible.
While you're learning to allow your horse to do what he needs to do, you'll still be exercising your brain, but in a different way. As you go around the cross-country course, you'll need to "think your way around" and you'll need to remember everything that happens, so that you can replay the course in your mind later and analyze each moment. If you have good jumps and bad jumps and can't remember which ones they were or why they were bad (approach? footing? light? distractions?), you won't be able to figure out which of your skills need more work, and you won't be able to help your horse more by preparing him better the next time. In the hunter ring, your entire ride - every approach, every jump, and every landing, as well as every lead change, every turn, and every shift in position - is visible to the judge, to the spectators, perhaps also to your parents with their video camera, and to your trainer. The second you get through that out-gate, you're being told what you did, where, when, and how it looked. At an event, it's very different. You may have friends posted at a few key fences to take photos or just watch you through; your trainer may be able to watch you go over the first two, or the last two, jumps, but the only one who knows everything about how you and your horse took every jump is YOU. If you can't remember what happened at fence 5, or whether your horse actually stopped at the water or just paused to re-group before jumping, you'll only have the jump judge's record to go on, and that won't tell you HOW you jumped, just whether you did or didn't jump. You're going to have to train yourself to motice everything, remember everything, and analyze everything. And that habit will stand you in good stead the rest of your life, no matter what kind of riding you do.
One more thing you're going to discover if you do some eventing: You and your horse will have to learn to trust each other a lot, and your horse will have to learn to think for himself on cross-country. Those can be very useful skills too. ;-)
Jessica
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