Ashlee Slavich - Event Rider and Coach

Taking the young/green horse to their first comp.

🐴 A little snippet it of, not young, but definitely green, ‘Red’ out at his first🐴

Variables which may affect how your horse manages the outing, which are often forgotten about:

🔹Travelling
🔹Being tied to the float
🔹Yarded with other horses
🔹 Leaving their buddy
🔹 Warming up amongst other horses
🔹 Size of warm up areas. Do you have space to do your own thing or does a feeling of claustrophobia or horse shy start to creep in
🔹 Moving arenas from warm up to competition arena. This can be very distracting for some horses and it may feel like you’re starting your warm up all over again
🔹 Noises eg; PA systems, crowds or machinery
🔹 Walk ways to and from arenas and float parking. These can be very busy and may wind up your horse before you even get to the arena.

What to do:

🔹 Pick the event wisely based on what will be best suited to your specific horse. A horse which is inclined to be nervous, hot or spooky needs to start with very little atmosphere.
🔹Do the work, do the prep. Not just the week before, but months before.
🔹 Have practice outings which are smaller and of less atmosphere and get you practiced in different environments eg; riding with friends, lessons with your coach, clinics.
🔹 Calming pastes are helpful, but they are not the be all and end all and do not replace work.
🔹 Ride them every day (or as close to) the week leading up to the event.
🔹 Give yourself heaps of time - more than you think! Being in a rush is the last thing you and your horse need.
🔹 Walk them lots. Don’t just leave them in the yard or at the float until it’s time to ride. Get them out seeing things and settling on the end of a lead rope first. Not grazing - walking!
🔹 Pre- ride. Have a ride before you get on to warm up and then compete. Often going out for a short ride then coming back to the float for some hay and a chill out, gives them time to think.
🔹 Ground work before you ride.
🔹 Be around your horse. Take note of how he is taking in the atmosphere. If your horse because stressed, it’s best to get on top of it sooner rather than later, help them settle, then leave them alone again. If you leave them for hours unattended you will of missed out on valuable information regarding how your horse is actually managing all things related to the outing.
🔹 Your horse forgets a fair percentage of his education and overall rideability when stressed, anxious or distracted so be prepared to be sitting on a different horse. It’s because of this that you want to prepare with educating the horse above the level that you want to compete at - don’t do the bare minimum and hope to get away with it.

Yes we all find cross country exciting, (well most of the time 😅)
We get to go a bit faster, get out of the saddle, jump some cool jumps, take a couple of flyers here and there ✈️😅
But what doesn’t always look so shiny and fun in our practice is the more detailed approach. These of which actually end up paying off in competition and in the long run.
And that is the discipline to develop good rideability in our horses.
We need them to turn and bend well, stay in balance while changing direction, while jumping and landing and while going up and down terrain. Have adjustable canters, be able to easily go up and down the gears and be polite enough to pay attention to us and not just go out and gallop.
So next time you go out schooling test out how much control you have by:
1 - Making more transitions. Go up and down the gears in trot and canter.
3 - Changing direction more often
4 - String more fences together rather than jumping them singularly
5 - Ride curves and straight lines
6 - Use transitions and circles in your lines to help make the horse more responsive to your aids

Thumbs up to Matilda riding this tricky line. From one rein, to the next, and back again in a relatively short space of time. What you can’t see from the video is how little room there is between and on either side of each of these jumps. She had to ride super accurate corners in order to be square and straight to each jump as well as having to work at acheiving bend and balance all throughout the pattern👏👏