Getting 4 year old ready for BYEH classes experiences

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Hi i just wondered if people could share their experiences of getting horses ready for these classes, I would love to have a go at one of these with my 4 year old but just wondering how on earth people get them ready and up to a decent enough level to be able to not show our selves up.. I would love to do the classes but not at the risk of ruining the spirit of my horse with work overload as she is just a real treasure and too nice to ruin... and my long term aim is more important.

just wanted peoples experiences of what type of workload they were doing and if they ever worked towards it but didnt actually go due to not thinking the horse was ready.. i know amateurs do compete in these classes but i want experience from people who have produced the horse themselves from scratch not bought well established 4 rising 5 year olds ready to compete in these classes if that makes sense.... not saying that these people shouldnt and havent put the work in just want to know how people achieve it on their own... from the ground up aso to speak if that makes sense...
 
I've aimed, in theory, my last 2, and current young horse, at 5yo (not 4yo as for me, that is just too unrealistic!) classes- BYEH, BE and county show type young sports horse/pony classes. However, I've never actually acheived it! Current 4yo bought unbroken in October, would love him to do some 5yo classes but although i will aim to progress towards them i thik it's unlikely unless I put a pro on him for a bit.
Sooo, I think the idea is probably to aim for it, put in the correct work at home, go to schooling nights, build up to low level aff BUT view it all as a schooling exercise. Then, if horse is good enough at the required time, go for it.
 
I'll be looking at replies to this with interest, as I have a 4 year old and I was thinking it would be lovely to do some BYEH 5 year olds with him next year, until I realised the SJ was 1.05m! Had already ruled out BE5YO as there is no way we'll be ready to do BE100 level next season.

So far all we have done is hacking, schooling, and local dressage & rc clinics etc and all the jumps have been under 2'6, and we can't really canter properly at the moment!

Am in 2 minds about whether I am taking it too slow and I need to pull my socks up, or the age classes are unrealistic for hobby riders like me who want a long term horse rather than producing to sell.

Will be interested to see what others do.
 
Will horse be in the 4yo class or the 5yo one (not clear to me from your OP if the horse currently 4 or will be 4 :) )

IME of watching my friend compete in them alot is that they expect more from the 5yo than the 4yo. The 4yos more often than not are quite wobbly, with not brilliant steering. As long as they are capable of going round an 80cm (I think) course they'll be fine. TBH I've seen pro riders in stitches laughing through the ride on 4yo more than once as the horse is quite obviously very green!

The 5yo they expect quite a bit more of a polished performance. That said, if its something you want to do, then do it - enter one of the smaller ones like Hambleton first to see how it goes, before you face up to the bigger arenas with more going on like Bramham etc (can see you're in Yorks). There's generally more than one that falls off!

I would be doing some unaff dressage, show SJ and be popping over some logs, they don't need to be doing that much I don't think :)
 
Princess p, My thoughts exactly re getting them ready for age classes, i want to event my mare in the future so long term is more important. she is 4 now so would be the 5 year old classes i would be aiming for i think the 4 year old is 90cm i could be wrong tho.... she is working at prelium level dressage getting 63-65%ish in tests havent done as much jumping but happily jumps 90cm not pretty mind you lol... i was thinking hambleton might be a good one to try....
 
Hambleton is nice and quiet (ish) and the BYEH arena is away from the crowds. My sister will be there on her 4yo.

I think you shouldn't worry about fence heights - 1.05m is not that big to most horses, and I don't think all of them are that height are they? My plan would be to do Hambleton, and then decide on whether to do more. If you felt the horse would do well with a more confident rider after Hambleton, you could always get someone else to ride in the next one? :)
 
As above - Hambleton (and the Yorkshire Sports Horse show later in the year on the same site) do use a fairly DIY set of jumps. There will be some XC-esque fences there which always catches a few out as some of the other qualifiers just use SJ/WH fences.

Bear in mind that you will need to enter Bramham in about March if you want to go. It's not a whole load of money though and lots of people whack an entry in then w/d clser to the time if they haven't got the horse to the stage they want.
 
Hi Gamebird, yes i was thinking i would do this with bramham, and she is happy to jump fillers and normal i am just starting to have SJ lessons with a professional however last outing didnt quite go to plan with an unintentional dismount, maybe i should take up flying i certainly did a good impression that day he he and also i have weekly flat lessons, but just wonderd how realistic they are to get to and how often would you recomend to be jumping the actual height id be doing??
 
4yos and 5yos are a whole different ball game, but the 5yos I've taken were jumping BN/Disco the winter before and competing at BE100 when they were doing the BYEH stuff so they found it pretty easy. Plenty of horses do it with less experience though.
 
Just as a point, keep in mind that these are not training classes, they were originally designed as testing' showcase classes for exceptional individuals with potential to be top end horses. The onus is on the owner/rider to choose appropriately and there is no mandate that the class be suitable for the average horse, even leaving out whether or not the horse will be competitive.

Obviously not every YH competitor will be a successful FEI horse and not every 4* horse won at YH, so it's not a hard and fast connection. If you aren't in the business of breeding or producing top horses then there is actually very little point in chasing these classes and even those people don't take every horse by any means.

I only say this as the problem with having it as a goal is the risk of finding out to late that it isn't a suitable goal for that particular horse. Also, people would be surprised how little prep some of the real stars get, precisely because they are suited to those classes. So if you're really having to hustle a horse to reach the standard, almost by definition it's not the right choice.

Gb is selling herself a bit short. ;) She has ridden a lot of horses and jumped a lot of jumps, so she would know if she was sat on a horse that was ready for the task at hand well before it actually got to the ring.
 
As TS says, they're not training classes but that doesn't mean you can't use them in that way. I think they're handy as you'll get a decent standard of course-building and they're much more useful than your average show class for getting a young horse out and about. BUT pick your venues carefully as even the most chilled individual can be over-awed by the bigger atmosphere at places like Bramham, as Gamebird and I have both found out! :rolleyes:

If you use the search facility on here you should find some reports and vids of us on our babies, strutting their stuff. :o
 
Sorry, I wasn't saying don't do the classes or that they can't be beneficial, just that there seems to be a feeling now that the classes indicate where horses SHOULD be at those ages now. My point was only that a decision on a specific horse's suitability is usually obvious some way before the actual day.
 
TarrSteps said:
Sorry, I wasn't saying don't do the classes or that they can't be beneficial, just that there seems to be a feeling now that the classes indicate where horses SHOULD be at those ages now. My point was only that a decision on a specific horse's suitability is usually obvious some way before the actual day.
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Oh definitely, I've just been lucky enough to have a few that have been forward and confident enough to do the classes - with varying degrees of success, I should add. :o No way should these classes be used as a benchmark of where all 4 and 5 year olds should be.
 
Well, I did 4yr old BYEH with my mare that was broken in March of her 4 yr old year. I picked one that was supposed to be kind and quiet as her first one and she actually did pretty well, got good dressage marks, great jumping marks and through to the final phase. She was 8th or 9th in that though as I had never galloped her and was too chicken to open her up!! :D In fact it took her 2 years to learn to gallop properly anyway so no loss in hindsight. :)

I then did Gatcombe and took her out before the jumping as she was just overwhelmed by the atmosphere and froze during the dressage. Took her to Hartpury which was very busy and she was a little strong in the dressage and just bounced round the jumping for fun. Finished about mid field there which I was very pleased with as there were loads of very nice horses there.

I think some horses just find it all so easy that they are ready with very little work - mine had done a couple of dressage tests and a couple of 80cm courses beforehand, so she hadn't even jumped a course of the class height! They don't mind them being a bit wobbly at 4.

I didn't feel she was ready in her 5 yr old year for BYEH although she did start BS and BE that year and was easily jumping PN with a Novice at the end of the season. I think I just felt I needed it all to look much more polished for BYEH.

I had great fun doing them (I PM'd Baydale for loads of excellent advice ;):) ) and would do them again if I had a horse that found it as easy as my last one. I don't think there is any point (as an amateur) pushing them if they don't feel ready though. Mine wouldn't have been ready for 4 yr old BE for instance as there was just too much to prepare on top of basic dressage and SJ.
 
There are normally a couple from my yard that do BYEH now. I agree there is a big difference between the 4 and 5 year old classes and a lot more is expected. Mine was, in theory ready for the 5 yr old classes (so could do a reasonably nice dressage test, was well on his way with the show jumping) BUT, it was felt that he would simply not cope with the atmosphere of a bigger show. He is a horse who gets a little Maggie Smith with new things before going in the complete opposite direction of then getting cocky once he has sussed it. As he aiming to be my event horse and pony for life, we felt it was better to pull him and give him time to mature. This was my less than professional wimpy opinion, backed up by my YO and then firmly agreed by a good SJ trainer!

BTW, I did my homework in terms of expectations by looking at every sort of video for this on You Tube, then looking at the winning horses. My 5 year old was nowhere as "finished" looking as those either.
 
I attempted Rutland last year (5yr old)
SJ was working hunter style and a very nice course however they'd put sand on the take off and landing which was deep and the horse didn't like the amount of movement this made on take off and landing so I retired her at fence 6.
In the Dressage (and this is going to sound so unbelievably stupid) she was scared of the Dressage boards. We'd done plenty of Dressage up to Novice, getting placed etc but at places like Bury Farm and Addington etc the arenas are 20m wide so she'd never seen that many white boards before.
We had regular lessons and hired out venues so we could school at 1.05. We did it as something to do rather than with a view to selling.
 
We have been lucky and qualified 4 horses for the final out of 5 attempts. The courses do tend to vary, the bigger venues like Bramham would be more imposing than some others.
There seem to be a lot more entries in some of the qualifiers these days ( Fieldhouse where we qualified had 78 entries).
We just did some small clear round SJ and dressage with the 4 yr old, the 5 yr old you would want to be capable of jumping a discovery class.
One that was 2nd in the 4 yr old final had only jumped a x pole under saddle in the May of that year.
They are good educational classes though.
 
some great experiences and things to think about from everyone, i do agree with the people saying what 4/5 years are expected to be at a certain level and not every horse matures as fast as others but it dosent necessarily mean they arent capable... I think having seen a few friends do the classes on their 5 year olds my expectations have become a bit wavered, in terms of what level i expect her to be at and forget many of these had been produced to sell by professionals.

Good idea having a look at previous videos on you tube tho will defo do that.. i think what ive learnt is specially with youngsters play it by ear, if their ready their ready if not its not the end of the world.. but dont think all horses at 4/5 should be doing the same things.. WOW having young horses is worse than children he he ...
 
I personally think a lot of people 'over complicate' training young horses and getting them ready for things like this. A nice genuine young horse shouldnt need an awful lot in terms of schooling etc in order to go and do these classes. What you do need to establish is your horses temprement and his 'mental' age - some young horses no matter how much training or whatever you put into them wouldnt be able to cope with them at 4 and 5 years old. Others do very little and can go out and do them.

From my personal experience I bought Autumn in the october as a 4yo who was backed and popping small fences (75cms ish). I spent a while getting used to her over the xmas period and then by about jan/feb time took her out to a couple of dressage competitions and then two showjumping competitions to pop round the british novice. prior to this experience the only time she had been off the yard was when I bought her and brought her home! I then put our entries in for the byeh classes but other than that it was mostly hacking I did with her.

By this point my horse still hadnt done a 'novice' dressage test nor even jumped a single fence on its own at the class height of 1.05 but at the end of the day she felt mature and confident so it was a very calculated risk that we went and did them and we had a great time :) Likewise even the medium trot I dont think we 'learnt' until a fortnight before.

Im not saying for a moment that we were underprepared, I had everything covered right up to trotting up and standing properly in hand but I guess what Im trying to say is that quality and temperment in a horse will always shine through and even without oodles of training and shows a nice, genuine young horse should be able to take it on and I think you'll know nearer the time if your ready or not.

I did two classes with mine. Hambleton which I knew was quiet, and not scary and then a week later was bramham - obviously very different there! I only decided to run at Bramham after a sucessful and confident time at Hambleton otherwise I would have WD!

Some 5yo's are out doing BE100's at this point but mine hadnt even seen a xc fence by this stage!
 
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