Preparing for a competition

Everyone’s run up to an event varies. Not only from person to person but from horse to horse. What suits one, won’t necessarily suit another. I generally have the same kind of ethos towards the two weeks running up to a competition though no matter which horse it is.

Two weeks out I do my last canter training session. Hard fast work is where injuries are most likely to occur and fitness will not significantly improve over that two week period therefore I start to taper two weeks out. Over the following week I still do some longer training sessions, between 10-20km, but at slower speeds. Now I’ll still let them canter but not for long periods of time and not at anything much over 18kph.

In the week before a competition, I will do a couple of walk hacks and then a lunge about 3 days out, this lets me see how they’re moving and make the final decision as to whether they are definitely going to the event. After that I don’t ride until ride day. If they’re stabled at an event the day before competition I’ll hand walk them but other than that they get 3-4 clear days off before competing.

In the final week they’ll have a massage and stretch almost everyday and I change my feed and electrolytes slightly, just as a human athlete would pre-load (They eat the same thing but in different quantities throughout training depending on how hard they’ve worked anyway so nothing new is added).