Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE Newsletter Archives

Fit for Novice event?

From: Suzy

Dear Jessica, I want to go to my first event in three months and I want to be ready. My instructor says that I don't have to worry, because I'm going to be competing at Novice and my horse will be fit by then. He already knows how to jump. I think I should practice a lot of jumping before the event, but my instructor thinks I need to do a lot of trot and canter. We don't have a lot of jumps but my neighbor has a track for her racehorses and she'll let me ride on it sometimes. If I go and gallop every week on that track, do you think my horse will be fit enough even if we don't have a lot of jumps? And how will I know for sure that my horse will be really fit and can gallop all the way around the course and jump the jumps too? I'm going to show your answer to my instructor, she doesn't have a computer but she really likes horse-sense, I print it out for her every single week. Thank you a lot. Suzy

Hi Suzy! I'm going to agree with your instructor on this one, which should make you feel good. ;-) You need to do SOME jumping between now and the event, but not lots of it -- jumping is hard on horses. Jumping is harder on horses than cantering, cantering is harder on horses than trotting, and trotting is harder on horses than walking. So the fitter you can make your horse by walking and trotting, with some cantering, the better off he will be. After all, you want him to stay sound -- if you jump constantly until that first event of the season, it may be your last event of the season. If your instructor works you over jumps once or twice a week, that should be plenty. On the other days, the exercises you do on the flat will be making you a better rider over jumps. Don't worry about the number and variety of your jumps -- your instructor can set up four jumps in a way that will let you jump them from both directions, and if you and your horse get bored with their looks, hanging old bath towels over the top rail will make ANY jump look new and challenging.

You're lucky to have access to a track! But don't gallop at all, that's not what your horse is going to do at the event. At the Novice level, you can go around very nicely at a normal canter, NOT a really fast one and certainly not a gallop. There are no rewards for finishing fast -- in fact, there are penalties for finishing TOO fast, because it means that you pushed your horse too hard. Trot and canter work is what you'll need to do, and before the event -- say two weeks beforehand -- you can take the length of the cross-country course, double that distance, and then CANTER that distance. In other words, if the course is 3/4 of a mile long, you would canter one and a half miles. If your horse can comfortably canter a distance twice the length of the course, he's fit. ;-)

Jessica

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