Stafford BE

[OliveOyl]

It says on the "Course Information" bit on the BE website that Stafford's XC is maximum length and requires superfit horses, or words to that effect.

Anyone been before? Does horse need to be super fit to make it round? She's done one Intro already (Sapey) and was absolutely fine with that, came in with a few time penalties (5) but we weren't pushing it.

 

[Cullohill]

we went beginning of this year did the pn, one of our first outings was very exciting!!
anyway in my opinion the course is not very testing, ie not very big and i didn't think the course was long at all and there's no major hills to contend with.... of course for eventing your horse should be fit for the level it is competing at and my boy was fit and is quick but sure it didn't cause many problems through the day.
Just checked on the website as to what it exactly says - of course they may have updated fences height wise and added fences in so it may have got tougher but to me it was an fairly straight forward course. undulating... um nothing very hilly small climb on home straight and extra bit for pn abit hilly but i've done far more hills in other courses.

hope that helps abit??

just remembered got couple photos from there that friend took may give u an idea... sj

out of water

home straight small hill climb....

Good Luck!

 

[OliveOyl]

Yes, thank you, that's very helpful!

Really nice piccies, your horse looks lovely!

 

[sillygillyhorse]

I walked the Stafford course earlier this year and would agree with Cullohill. Your horse will need to be fit but certainly not racing fit!

 

[Iestyn]

Hello Mrs T!!! I would agree with what has been said - nice course, good confidence builder at intro and PN. Your horse will need to be fit but I'm sure you would have him.her fit enought anyway to cope with an intro or PN. I don't think that you need specialist fittening at that level - if your horse is working most days of the week for about an hour each time, with some longer hacks and cantering added in then you should be fine - but then it depends on the type of your horse as well, but I would say that is pretty generanl.

 

[wodger_woo]

The reason the organiser put this about fitness was the first event she ran in spring last year last year, the ground was quite bad and the amount of truely unfit horses was appalling

. I witnessed one horse really struggling

. She said that 2 riders were reported to BE because of it.
However that was an early season event and I should think that your horse would be fine.

There are 2 hills one after the steps (was fence 9 I think) and the one on the home straight.

 

[Shrimp]

Stafford is a really nice course, not technical (except for the clock tower fence at the top of the hill which had an alternative but thats it techincality wise ) and its not big either. We did it as our second event of the year without any xc schooling as the ground had been so awful before hand and my horse wasnt particulary fit and we came home with two time penalties as I didnt push it. There are a couple of hills but your horse doesnt need to be uber fit so I think you should be fine.

 

[OliveOyl]

That's great then!! Like I said, she's fairly fit anyway, just not racing fit so to speak.
Thanks for the extra info though!

 

[beenleighford]

im going to Stafford BE but neva bin b4!