TRAINER’S POINT OF VIEW By Amber Heintzberger
Should Sport Horses Take a Vacation from Training and Competition?
and watch TV for a few hours. Now, we all know that most horses love to stand around munching grass and hanging out with their buddies, but are there any real advantages to giving horses a vacation from the daily grind of training and competition? Three experts from three disciplines weigh in with their thoughts on whether horses, too, need to get away from it all.
C Meet the Experts
U.S. Eventing Team member and Olympic gold medalist Phillip Dutton, of West Grove, Pennsylvania and Aiken, South Carolina is the record 12-time U.S. Eventing Association Rider of the Year and the 2005 number-one ranked FEI World Event Rider. Phillip’s horses range from youngsters starting out to Four-Star veterans. He is the author of the book Modern Eventing, due to be published in the spring of 2013. Show jumper Susie Hutchison, whose stables are
located in the Temecula valley of southern California, has more than 80 lifetime Grand Prix wins to her name. With a string including young prospects to Grand Prix competitors, she has all sorts of horses in her care. She was elected and continues to represent the Active Athletes on the USEF (formerly AHSA) Board of Directors since 1996. Dressage rider Yvonne Barteau and her husband Kim
own and operate KYB Dressage in Maple Crest, Illinois, with winters spent near Wellington, Florida. They develop young horses through Grand Prix level, create musical freestyles for riders and also ride in exhibitions including Equine Affaire and Equitana USA. Their daughter Kassie was a successful Young Rider before starting her own riding and training business in Villa Rica, Georgia. Yvonne is also the author of the book, Ride the Right Horse.
82 March/April 2013
rushed by modern schedules and lifestyles, people love to get away from it all: relax and unwind on the beach, hit the ski slopes or even sit around on the sofa
Do you give your horse a break during or at the end of the competition season? Phillip: Traditionally after three-day events horses have
been given time off in a field and not ridden. Their shoes are pulled and they’re allowed to “be a horse.” For some horses, mentally, they come back more relaxed and fresh and put on weight better than if they are kept in work. These days ultra marathon runners often don’t take time off from training— racehorse trainers as well will lighten the work, so the horses are stretched and exercised, but not in hard training. I do something in the middle: I give the horses time off in most cases and will take the shoes off at the end of the season because I think it’s good for their feet to toughen up and grow how nature wants them for a while. In some cases they do go a bit footsore but I think it’s good for them over the long term. Susie: My horses pretty much stopped showing in
October. I keep hacking them and I go back to the basics with their training. Here in California we don’t have nice pastures to turn them out in; if we did have that luxury I would probably give them some time out at pasture, but we only have small turnout paddocks.
After a three-day event, Phillip Dutton, pictured here riding Annie Jones’s The Foreman at Rolex Kentucky 2010, gives his horses time off to rest and recuperate.
Amber Heintzberger
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