Managing the competition calendar

There are many events on the horse riding competition calendar. Primarily I am interested in the HRCAV events. However, shows can be really handy to give the rider preparation experience, and the horse a nice outing. Then there are Equestrian Australia (EA) events, which sometimes have training grades at my level. Pony clubs sometimes have "open" sections where anyone can compete. In addition to that there are clinics, lessons, adult riding club, and pony club to juggle. And that's on top of the usual family commitments - lunch at grandma's, ballet practice, parties, etc.

Ah, I forgot to mention that I prefer events within a 2 hour drive.

All in all, trying to create a manageable calendar of events for you and your horse, where you get a good mixture of training and competing, is quite a challenge!

So, what I do, is I sit down with my diary every few months, and write down every single event within a respectable distance that I can find. I ensure that I include Pony Club, and any other events my daughter may wish to go to. Then I go through the diary and put a red box around the "must do" events. That is: Pony Club and Horse Trials at my level. And, of course, those pesky family thingies.

Once I have a Horse Trials event in sight, I work backwards and try to find a cross country clinic. I try to squeeze in a dressage lesson or two or three, and one other outing. The aim of the outing is to give your horse a taste of being away from home at an event, but without much pressure, or nerves, or stress from me.

For this purpose, shows are my favourite. Because I just don't care! Of course I still wash my horse, plait them, put white stuff on my horse's socks, and black stuff on my horse's hooves. I still try and ride them to perfection. But, I don't care about the result. What I care about most is that my horse behaves well, and that they have the opportunity to relax.

Another very useful option though, is to take your horse to an event that you're not actually competing at. That way you get the whole feel of the commotion, but you just do your normal home workout. Your horse has to stand at the float and take in the atmosphere.

Achieving the perfect preparation is always difficult. But being able to see all the events in my calendar gives me a really good view what my options are. That way I can adjust my plans, depending on how my horse is travelling. I can also see why I am not attending certain events - especially when I hear friends are.