Optimum time/judging speed advice

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njaysharpie

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Hi

I'm doing my first BE90 in a couple of weeks time. I did an unaffiliated 90 in October 14 and we got 6 or 7 'too fast' time faults. I was just wondering how people pace themselves when you can't wear a watch to know that you're not going to be too fast or too slow, or is it just luck?

Thanks!

P.s. we weren't out of control at all at our last event, he is just a big bold horse with a long stride and a very economical jump!
 
If you have access to a field then mark out (electric fence poles are good) 450m using a measuring wheel - or long tape.

Ride the distance at what you think is the correct speed and get a friend to time you. The correct speed for BE 90 is 450 meters per min so the 450m should take 1min. If you factor in having to slow down a bit to set up before fences then you would want to be going a bit faster in between fences so would want to be riding the 450 in just under 1 min.
 
Doesn't have to be a straight line! Better if it isn't as will be more representative of a xc course. You can just go round more than once provided you mark the start and finish points and don't cut corners - that's why electric fence posts are useful to mar the corners
 
Its something you just develop an eye for. Often by being too fast or too slow. The suggestions above are absolutely right - but when on course you also have to account for periods where you are slower for a combination or hard profile fence and sections where you can gallop flat out. You also have to be able to guess how much time you might have lost if you have a problem. And all without wearing a watch! We work on it by lots of training. Go to an XC course, measure out a section of fences and jump them to time. A bit like driving a car you just get to know what speed is about right and how to accommodate the faster and slower bits. In some areas the BE training academy also run courses to work on timing. I think it took about 1/2 a season to get used to the timings. Its hunter trials where they won't tell you the optimum time which annoy me now!
 
There is a book called Give Your Horse a Chance (by D'Endrody; a Hungarian Olympic rider) that goes into this in great detail. As well as practicing timings, as mentioned above, he advocates working out what speed you would be going for different sections of the course in detail.
Re: practising timings: before I had a measuring wheel i used to use a section of quite road with telephone poles and a wide verge. The telephone poles are supposed to be put at a set distance apart (can't remember what) so I could practice different timings and speeds. However, if you have an appropriate place you could measure the distance with a bicycle or car too (long-term a measuring wheel is ideal, but be warned that not all are calibrated for grass/turf and are only accurate on flat surfaces).
Not sure why you can't wear a watch? I used to use just an ordinary Casio watch with stopwatch feature long before i could afford an event watch. Something else to watch out for: with the countdown in the start box, there will be a couple of/few seconds variation between the timer and your own watch if you press it when they say 'Go'. This is because of the time for them to click their watch, saying go, then the sound to reach you and you to respond by clicking your watch. So, it can be more accurate to click as they say 5 seconds to go.
Ditto with inaccuracies at the finish where they might watch you cross the line then look down and stop the watch, or you might not click your watch at the same time as them.
 
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