as with everything else related to your goals, you must start at the end. Articulate what you want to accomplish during the upcoming season. Have a sense of what you and your horse must be able to do in order to reach your ultimate goal. Identify the different stages of training necessary to get to that goal and work on them.
Your ultimate goal is to ride perfectly when you need it most. That is not during a lesson. Lessons are about figuring out pieces of a puzzle, filling your bag of tricks, and developing skills and tools.
Horse shows allow you to put the pieces, tricks, skills, and tools together. To that end, if you think that you need ten horse shows in order to do things right at the “Really Big Event,” you must take each of those ten shows into account.
Plan your year all the way to the end. If it is January now, and you want your best performance to happen at a big show on October 15, you must address the following questions:
Am I entered in the right shows to make qualifying for the October event possible?
How can I, between now and then, participate in enough horse shows to qualify, but not so many that my horse ends up tired, sour, or lame?
How can I compete in enough shows so that I am experienced, but still have enough time at home to work on my basics and make sure that I have honed my skills?
How do I arrive on October 15 having shown in enough pressure situations to be able to be competitive, but without overdoing things and being worn out?
How much time do I need to rest before the big event in order to be sure that my horse and I are fresh?
There are no easy answers to these questions. But, you do your horse and yourself a huge favor if you address them early in the season, instead of careening toward a major event with no forethought. Ask yourself the pertinent questions. Then, based on your answers, arrive at a plan.
More importantly—as the show season progresses, follow your plan. If you find that your plan was too ambitious, by all means reevaluate. But, don’t allow early successes to make you overreach your original intentions. That is how horses get injured or sour, and how riders get burnt out.
The Merits of Competition
The notion of a particular round counting more than another concerns some riders. “Why emphasize competition?” they wonder. “How will competing make me a better rider?”
Of course, competition is not necessary. One of its great merits, however, is that it gives you a fairly accurate way to gauge your own progress.
4.6 Competition allows you to see how you measure up against other riders, and against your own past performances.
I teach many students who never show. They just enjoy lessons and the process of learning. That is fine, but competing can help perfect skills that won’t bloom in a tamer environment.
Competition puts you in a situation that you did not create yourself. Other course designers are never going to build a course exactly as you would. They are not going to hold a horse show in exactly the same place you would normally ride. The ring won’t be exactly the same size as you are used to. When you are at home, doing your exercises and riding your courses, you will inevitably tend toward a particular, consistent pattern or program. Competition bumps you out of your comfort bubble.
If you only ride on your own, it is very easy to develop a slanted viewpoint. But, just attending an event—going somewhere else, doing things in a different way, jumping somebody else’s courses, competing against other people, and showing in front of different judges—introduces countless variables that will only help develop you as a rider.
Take Note
Throughout the year, I make notes of riding skills that my students still need to work on. I actually write down a list of things that I feel need to be included in our preparation before we head to a big show. One student’s list might include the following:
Needs to jump more without stirrups
Uncomfortable with long approaches
Hands too high / shoulders too round
Has difficulty keeping the horse’s shoulders balanced through turns
Has problems picking up correct leads
I will only write down things that should already be mastered, or that I know will be tested that year. For instance, if the student is having problems picking up his correct leads, it would be pointless for me to add “flying changes” to the list.
Committing your concerns to paper can help keep yourself on track. It can provide a valuable reference during your practices.
Don’t put everything you ever want to be able to do on a horse on one list. Remember: practice riding in manageable pieces.
Gauging Your Progress
Perfection is not a realistic goal for any rider. The point of equitation is to constantly hone your skills and improve your riding.
If over a period of time—one year, five years, or ten years—you steadily move up in the divisions and improve, then you are doing a good job. If you don’t seem to be progressing, then perhaps you need to talk to some other trainers or change your program a little bit to make a difference.
Goals are very personal things. Every now and again reflect on your progress and review your program. Decide what you like and don’t like about your current approach. Decide how you are going to address what needs to be changed. Then, move on from there.
The Annual Extra
Every year, in addition to the obvious facets of good riding—”heels down,” “straight line to the mouth,” “ride forward”—I choose one new habit that I want to have adopted by the end of the season.
For instance, one year my “Annual Extra” was to always be sure schooling jumps at horse shows were placed where the footing was good. If they were not, I would deliberately move the jumps to better ground. It became a firm habit, developed over the course of a year, and it is now ingrained in my students, my grooms, and anyone that helps us. When we go to school a horse, we put the jump in good footing.
For the Annual Extra, as with so many other aspects of riding, checklists are invaluable. They allow you to analyze what you want to do and what you actually do. Then you can change what is necessary in order to improve.
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