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With Amber Heintzberger
Part ten in a series on preparing for your first three-day event.
In this series Ashley Adams, assistant trainer to Bonnie Mosser at Point Above Farm, offers advice to riders preparing for their first three-day event. Ashley is currently preparing her Thoroughbred gelding Vaunted for their second time competing at the Rolex Kentucky three-day event.
This is a phrase that I have had ingrained into my vernacular for a long time. Kim and Bonnie have told me this in almost every lesson! This phrase holds very true for the 3-week-out period before your three-day. It is important to remember that you have gotten this far doing things a certain way, and to remember to only try to control the things that you can control; the things that you can’t control, well, those are just left to the universe.
For example, take a second and think about how your horse pulled up at his last event. How long did it take for him or her to come back to a normal TPR, how did his or her legs look after the run, and how did he or she perform on the final day? Another important thing to look at is not just the event but the days at home following the event. Typically, by this stage in the game you may start to feel your horse become a bit sluggish after an event; this may be due to the stress that the heavy work load and travel has on their body and may result in fatigue or ulcers.
By taking the extra time to notice these things you will have plenty of time to address them and rectify the situation before your three day. By chatting with your vet and coach, you can come up with a plan to do any mid-season maintenance work that may need to be done or add any medications into your horse’s program. Being approximately three weeks out from the event, you are well within the “allowed drug timeline” for most basic “maintenance” drugs or medications – but be sure to consult with your vet on this.
An FEI event is different than a regular horse trials for a number of reasons, the main one being the governing body’s rules and regulations. There are just a few extra rules that you must take into consideration when you go to a three-day. For example, I recommend to most people that they clip their horse again before the three-day. This will allow optimal cooling out and recovery for the horse. That being said, some horses need tranquilizers in order to do a thorough clip job that is suitable for a three-day. You need to make sure that you communicate with your vet your time line and know that to be safe most drugs should be given no closer than a week out from the START of the competition. This does not mean the day on which you do your dressage test, this means the day of the first jog or in barns.
You will also want to make sure that you have touched base with your vet regarding your horse’s paper work. For those of you that are doing a CCI*, you must have a national passport; for those of you doing a CCI** or higher, you must have am international passport for your horse. If you are doing a training three-day, simply check with the secretary to find out what is needed for your horse. A vet will be able to help you record your shots and the dates on which they were given in accordance with the FEI rules.
Another thing that you will want to prepare for is the slightly different format; I always say that while three-days are more stressful competition-wise, in my case it is almost like a vacation. This is because typically they start on Wednesday and I usually only have one horse to worry about, as opposed to a horse trial where you have to do everything in two days and I am usually looking after a lot more horses!
When you arrive you will have to do “in barns”. These are usually held the day before the first jog and it is when the FEI vets check your paperwork and run their hands over each horse and make notes on each horse in the competition. It is a good time to point out anything that is normal to for your horse that will not affect their soundness in anyway. For example Vaunted, being an ex-steeplechase horse, has timber shins behind. He has had these for years and they do not affect anything at all. Most of the FEI vets know this is not an issue but will make a note about it so when they see him Sunday morning they know that is nothing new.
Typically you do not have to say much at in barns and the vets will take your horse’s TPR at rest and then will have those numbers recorded to compare them to the results after you come off cross-country.
The following day you will have your first trot-up and then you will get your dressage times. The rest is just like a horse trial until you get to Saturday. This is where the “No Big Changes” thing comes in. You already know how you need to prepare for your events. There is no need to change anything that you have been doing just because there is a slightly different format. You will go out on course and when you get back you will have to go into the “D” box. This is where you will cool your horse out and the vets will take another TPR and you will have your team working to get your horse cooled out.
In the next few installments I will go into more detail about how this usually goes down. The vets will formally release you, or tell you that your horse is cool enough to leave the area, at which time you will go back to the barn and take care of your horse and get him or her ready for the trot up on Sunday morning and show jumping later that day.
While planning ahead is key and trying to stay a step ahead of the game is important, it is also important to stay in the moment. Trust what you have done and what you have accomplished. It is a good time to build on that. By now you have the riding and the tools: just put a little shine on them and keep going forward!
