I need a training plan...

ihatework said:
I might be way off mark but I would float the idea, from what I have seen, that the underlying ‘need’ to be in control actually quite heavily influences all phases for you - obviously to a greater or lesser extent. It could be one of your training aims for the season, to shift your mindset and responses to how you achieve that control (which is obviously important!).
Click to expand...

I think you are right! I think I do feel like I need to be in control. I have sought out trainers and riding styles that focus on that too (I remember Buck Brannaman saying 'you English are crazy, you take horses show jumping that you can't even walk calmly across a field'). It had not occurred to me that maybe this is holding me back because I over-ride and over-think..... Thanks. Much food for thought. I feel a thread coming on......

ihatework said:
Obviously I might be way off course from limited knowledge if your set up - but from what I have seen you have a scopey bold quick horse who, if you can tweak a few things, I would put money in being top 10 in BE100’s, with you, within a couple of years.
Click to expand...

Wow my first reaction that that is don't be ridiculous!!! But a couple of years ago BE80 was a lifetime's ambition and a couple of year's before that jumping the 'big log' on the farm ride (all of about 45cm) was the limit of my ambitions. And here I am at BE90. So I have stopped setting long term goals or limits now as clearly I am not done yet! I will focus on the process, focus on the next few steps, work as hard as I can and see where we end up....
 
If it helps, this is what the pro lady rider does with my orange beast of a mare : Hack x 1, Canter/gallop round field x 1, flat x 1, jump/ raised poles x 1 . Then we plan xc schooling in a couple of times before an event, if no problems we just crack on. We do a few BS classes in between as well, usually jumping bigger than is needed for BE. So, as we are aiming at her first Be100, shes been doing 105 classes, for aBE90 class she would do a discovery class before hand. We do need to get a dressage test in soon as well.
We had a few issues cantering around our fields as well at first. Im sure Aria just couldn't get her head around it, as these fields usually = grazing/playing with friends, so to come and do some work , well in her mind that's just wrong. We had tonnes of bunny hops,bronc throwing around for a bit. Then we introduced Finn, he would canter with her and all in the world was fine, she had a blast last week. If you cant do that, id def recommend getting her to some gallops, its really helping my girl, and she loves it now.
 
Millie used to be an absolute menace hacking, she loved nothing more than to bog off with me on the grass tracks. I found doing interval training (timed, with a watch) was the absolute making of her, we went several times a week while prepping for a long format 3 day at what is now BE100... after a few weeks she stopped the yeehas and started seeing it as work. I did it for her fitness but was really pleased with the side effect of a huge increase in my ability to be in control! I wasn't nervous of her antics before then but it was definitely hard work managing her and I really felt the benefit afterwards. Might be something to consider? having a strict plan about the intervals might give you something to think about while you are doing it rather than letting your mind run away with you.

FWIW I totally agree with IHW's post and that was sort of where i was heading with my thoughts on the gallops. (also think BE100 well within your abilities in the future!)
 
Something a friend of mine tells her clients who event at 90/100 is to use canter sessions (be that in the field or on gallops) as a training exercise in itself.

Visualise a course in front of you. In some areas you might want to stick to your 450 m/m speed and just pretend you have let up fences in the way - so find you rhythm and every so often just set the horse back a fraction as if you had an easy fence in front of you. Then every now and again you want to find your coffin canter or you might want to trot into water. Pick markers as to where these ‘fences’ are - furlong posts / a tree etc. Every now and again you might want to open up up a hill, but then you need to get them back for a skinny!

They canter with their wither up, no tanking along downhill.

Leg yield every now and again, make sure you can get your leg on and use it to influence the horse.

The more you work the canter the less exciting it becomes!
 
The scientist in me is ashamed for even asking this question.... but is has anyone ever come across places that are just 'bonkers-behaviour' zones? For no obvious reason? We have a large piece of common land near our yard where all the kids gallop their ponies. ALL the horses and ponies go nuts on it. I thought that was through habit. But Amber is nutty on it too and I have never done more than walk across it? It would be the ideal place for canter intervals but I am not very keen! It's as if there is some sort of herd telepathy around it and the horses know this is the 'gallopy place' even if they themselves have never galloped there!

But I think that will be my next aim - canter intervals down there. (Gulp).
 
It sounds like the ideal place to do what you need to do EVENTUALLY - but at least set yourself up to succeed.

If mentally you are a bit worried this will transmit through to a sensitive red headed woman! Why do that?

Practice in an area you are more comfortable with. Build the expectations between both of you so you know what the training means and only then use the common.

It sounds like this issue is quite fragile for you so you need to stage manage this.
 
PaddyMonty said:
I used to create my own plan which was mainly around improving the horse which also meant me.
First thing I do is decided what I wanted to achieve. If you don't know where you want to be then it's a difficult job to create a map on how to get there. For example do I want to complete a BE event, make top 10 or win. Simple one for me, if you are competing then you are in it to win it.
Then comes the 'where am I starting from' and here you need to be brutally honest. None of that I got a 1% improvement in my dressage score over last outing. If that 1% dropped you further down the leader board than last time then it was simply the variation in judging not an improvement against the competition.
So lets say you looked at performance and note that you normally have a 65% test (35 penalties), 50/50 roll a pole in SJ (5 penalties) and have a stop or run out xc once every 6 outings (20 penalties). Normally make the time within a few seconds. (3 penalties) Note: this is just an example, yours will be different.
So what is hurting the most in the above example? The XC! To compensate for that you would need to do a 85% test. Step one becomes sorting out the xc, To do this you need to analyse why the stops happen? Unusual fence, poor setup (chasing time), rider fatigue? Find the real reason then you can work with instructor to fix it. It might be you need to slow down or visit a lot of different courses and jump them as though you were at an event, not wander around picking fences then having the perfect set up.
Now we have XC sorted as you feel you can go clear 99% of the time what next.
That 1:2 chance of rolling a pole. To make up for that pole you need to up your dressage score 5%. Now we all know how difficult it is to move a test from 65% to 70%.
Just as XC, analyse what causes the pole to roll, speed, lack of impulsion, rider fiddling, green horse, rider nerves. The list can be endless but in my experience of teaching there is normally a root cause. Find it and fix it but don't let the xc slide doing so. If you are getting your horse more and more back on its hocks to fix the SJ issue then be aware this may impact xc time as you will tend to set up too much xc.
Got the xc and the SJ sorted? Good, now analyse where you throw away marks in dressage, circles not round, transitions lack lustre, accuracy. Again be brutally honest and use you test sheets as a guide. Now go fix them.
All sorted now then? NO! go back to start of process and do it all again. The issues will be smaller and harder to fix but you will have moved and keep moving up the leader board.
In all of this analysis you will find there are rider issues that come out. Nerves, fitness, mental agility (you need to think on your feet sometimes). So analyse which is causing the most harm and work on that.
Far too many people try to fix a whole host of issues at the same time and as a result see little improvement. So tackle the big stuff before sweating the small stuff.
I can't give you a plan as I don't know your riding your horse or your real issues. Only you or a very good instructor will be able to do that.
That said if you want to discuss what goes wrong then PM me but you have to be totally honest in the answers you give to questions.
Click to expand...

I'd get someone to video you in all 3 phases at your next 3 competitions, and together with your competition record BE, and your own notes, send it to Paddy Monty or someone similar and pay them to give you a progress plan!
 
The basic fitness level for your horse to do the job you want them to is your job, lessons and clinics are to polish up techniques. Surely if you have affiliated this is already in place to have got you round the 90 course? You as the rider would know how fit your is and how fit they need to be.

As the rider you would also know what both your weak areas are that need working on, that's why you are having lessons to work on those things?
If you do two to three schooling sessions a week, you must be working on something from your lessons or something else that's cropped up in between.
Possibly what actually might be happening is you actually have too many lessons and do too many clinics, as a result when its just you with nobody telling you what to do, you've forgotten how to do things for yourself.
Your brain is overloaded with all the conflicting information you must be getting from all the different trainers.

What looks to be missing from your list is hillwork and cantering so I would look into hiring the gallops or see if a local facility has farm tracks that they hire.

Also I wouldn't want a horse that pulls like a train all the way round a course. If the horse is very onward bound and forwards or very behind the leg, either way they are not listening to you. Your speed into jumps must have come up in conversation with your trainers that you are looking for a controlled approach with impulsion not just galloping at it. This would be the area I would want to focus on.
 
Ambers Echo said:
Jenny & Dolly
1 hack, 1 lunge, 2 flatwork, 1 jumping lesson a week. PLUS weekend competing about 2 or 3 times a month. Either SJ or HT or AE. Only ever in 1 or 2 classes.
Click to expand...

On the feeding thread there was a suggestion that Dolly might be doing a lot for her age so I thought I'd ask again about her plan. I really don't want to over do things and recognise it would be easy to as she is so genuine and willing. Looking at what I wrote, it is a bit misleading - in our family planner I compete Amber once a month leaving 2-3 weekends free for the ponies. But actually they don't do as much as that. We have had Dolly 4 months and she has been out competing 3 times - just 1 class at 80cm each time. She is now having a break till 28th April.

I think I will drop the lunging or replace schooling with lunging and make sure Katie hacks her twice. So it would look like: 2 hacks, a jumping lesson, 2 flatwork OR 1 flatwork one lunge. And compete no more than once a month. We are sticking to 80 this season to make sure she stays confident. How does that seem? I did also ask our RI last night who felt at 5 it was fine as long we we don;t drill her, over-jump or over compete her. But I am just canvassing for a wider range of views to help me plan things. Thanks x
 
I think that sounds fine AE.
That first 12-18 months is all about quality rather than quantity - laying the foundations.
(Although to be fair even after that it should be quality over quantity too, but but then they are strong enough to ask more of)

If you have the access, then using a short hack to warm up and/or cool down is useful and you can then shorten the time in the school
 
Thanks IHW. I find it confusing to know what's best as advice seems to vary so much! One PC instructor told Katie to stick at 80 this season but another said she would be fine at 90. (We are sticking at 80). There are the BYEH classes which suggest that 4 year olds can be out competing and presumably doing plenty of work at home to prepare for that. (And that's not mentioning race horses!!) On the other end of the spectrum are people who feel you should not even be backing a horse till they are 5 or 6. In the USA a 5 year old is not seen as young and might be out ranching 8 hours a day. So I genuinely struggle to form an opinion on how much is too much for a young pony, and how much people's view is cultural rather than evidence based etc.
 
Ambers Echo said:
Thanks IHW. I find it confusing to know what's best as advice seems to vary so much! One PC instructor told Katie to stick at 80 this season but another said she would be fine at 90. (We are sticking at 80). There are the BYEH classes which suggest that 4 year olds can be out competing and presumably doing plenty of work at home to prepare for that. (And that's not mentioning race horses!!) On the other end of the spectrum are people who feel you should not even be backing a horse till they are 5 or 6. In the USA a 5 year old is not seen as young and might be out ranching 8 hours a day. So I genuinely struggle to form an opinion on how much is too much for a young pony, and how much people's view is cultural rather than evidence based etc.
Click to expand...

There is usually a happy medium to be had with different influencing factors relating to both horse, rider etc.

I believe you can do too little with young horses, a horse can’t grow strong without doing some work. But you can also over do it, physically and/or mentally often you have to adapt as you go along.

BYEH are interesting and a subject close to my heart. They are fundamentally designed to identify top level horses. Top level horses, under experienced riders actually need to do very little to do what is essentially a cross between a combined training and a showing class. If they have to be prepped from a 3yo in order to do a summer 4yo class then they actually aren’t of the quality that is really being sought in the class. That said, many do prep specifically for these classes but it is an unfortunate reality that they are either amateurs that know no better or are pros needing to put food on the table and this helps sell horses.
I can assure you, that the bulk of people who think they have a really good one on their hands wouldn’t be putting it through a BYEH 4yo ring.
 
That's a really interesting question, isn't it AE - you get people, on here even, who have barely cantered their seven year olds, and others who are backing at 3 and jumping the same year. And as you say, in the States :o

There is some suggestion that young horses actively need some work, to help develop their musculature for their future job - almost like a critical window for that development - and the way a lot of youngsters are kept isn't ideal for their development before backing (small, flat paddocks, limited turnout). Obviously, at the other end of the spectrum, you don't want to put unnecessary pressure or strain on young joints and growth plates which aren't fully closed.

There has to be a middle ground, but where it lies...?!
 
  • Like
Reactions: TPO
That's interesting IHW. I did hear the same from my YO who said pros keep the good ones back and BYEH classes are no more than a shop window. And of course we are not in that category anyway but it just adds to my sense of not really being sure about what is the right balance to strike. I agree too little is not good either.

Absolutely JFTD-WS - everyone would agree they should be in that lovely middle ground but there is no real consensus about where it is!!
 
Ambers Echo said:
:D you and your lovely horse are doing FAB!
Click to expand...

Thanks - though she's a bit old to be doing what she's doing, probably. But that's what comes of having spent last year doing silly stick-and-bally things! She's certainly out shadowed by your orange though ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top