United States Eventing Association

Part 12: It's Go Time!

With Amber Heintzberger | Photos by Mike McNally

Part twelve in a series on preparing for your first three-day event.

Less than a week out from your three-day! Wow. Take a moment to think about all that you have done to get to this point. You got your horse fit and ready and have been paying the utmost attention to his or her soundness and body condition. It is important to understand at this point in the game that your main vocabulary word is “maintain”.

Often riders will let their nerves get the best of them at this point. This will only harm the situation. Typically with Vaunted I will use the last week before a three-day to just focus on his mind. He’s usually easy to get a bit razzed, so the last week when he is just about to peak in his fitness, I need to make sure that I am not making his brain work faster than his feet!

While you will still have to do a final few gallops, jump schools, trots, and dressage tests, it is worth noting that you are really not going to put any more fitness on your horse. You just want to put the final polish on everything and keep those wind pipes open.

It is now that you will want to sit down with your coach and find out what all your warm up plans should be. Often times the event will have your competition number online by now so you should have a rough idea of what times you will be riding. You will not get your exact ride times until after your first trot-up.

It is also worth asking your coach what he or she thinks about your trot up warm up. This warm up is just at important as your dressage warm up! Oh, and make sure you have those jog clothes packed! I also take a moment to chat with my team just to make sure everyone is on the same page. You should know what time “in barns” are before the first jog and what time your first jog is. Then you will be able to communicate this information to get a schedule together for everyone to help you do your best!

During this last week you should have your horse shod for the final time before the three-day and have your vet out one last time. You are going to want to get those spare shoes that I mentioned early this month. Make sure they are marked on the outside of every shoe. At this point it is a bit too late to do any veterinary medicinal work. However, depending on where you will be traveling you may need a health certificate and it is always useful to do one last practice jog with your vet after your horse gets shod.

It’s time to get packing! You have been diligent all season about making sure that you have all the equipment that you will need for the three-day. It is now time to get out your Sharpie and put those initials on it and get it in your trailer! I always like to start with each phase of the event and think of anything that I may need for that phase and pack it. This is just a good method to keep me from feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Now is also the time to do the final trim up on your horse. Again, due to the drug rules you are a bit too close to the event to drug your horse to clip him. I usually clip Vaunted 8-10 days before the first jog up date. However you want to make sure your horse’s mane is pulled, nose, feet, ears, and tail are trimmed and he looks ready to show off your hard work.

When all the packing is done, the paper work is in order, your plan is made with your coach, and your horse is looking his best, take a moment to give yourself a bit of credit! No matter what happens at the event, you got yourself and your horse to the peak of your season. Good job! It is also important to make sure you continue to listen to your horse. After all, without that horse you will not be able to do what you are doing!

On a personal note, I had to take my own advice last week. My great horse Vaunted was telling me that he was not quite ready to go to Rolex this year and I had to listen to him. Last fall I opted to have the bone chips taken out of Vaunted’s ankle. He has had these chips since I bought him 8+ years ago and ran up to the CCI**** level with them. For me taking the chips out was to aid his future career. I have been so, so very lucky with him this past eight years as he has never had to miss a season due to lameness. Therefore I was not sure what type of healer he really is, and apparently he just needs a bit more time to get over that surgery. It was very hard for me to make that decision so very close to Rolex - I could almost see the entrance to the Horse Park!

In the end, that horse is what really matters. There will always be Rolex next year and I want to make sure there will be a Vaunted to go next year. I do want to extend a MASSIVE thank you to several people, first Amber Heintzberger for helping me get this blog out to all of you and so much more, Kelly Baltzell and all the people at Beyond Indigo Equine, Sheryl Rudolph and the entire FITS team, and Mike J. McNally for all of his wonderful photos. All of these people have had such a large impact on Vaunted and I. Thank you all so very much! Vaunted will be back running strong this fall and until then Bonnie and I have several openings for horses in training and sale horses. Good luck and keep kicking!