POV
With year-round competitions, how do your horses’ schedules compare to 20 or 30 years ago? Phillip: Even with “year-round” competing these days, I
think that back in long-format times the event horses were more physically drained after a three-day event whereas now they get more winded during the event but recover within days after the competition. In that way, horses are doing more than in years past. Susie: I show my horses two weeks each month, and then
take two weeks off. If someone is trying to qualify for the World Cup Finals or make a team, it forces them to show all the time; if you’re lucky to have two or three Grand Prix horses then that kind of schedule works, but otherwise horses get more work and less time off than they used to—but that’s kind of the way the world has gone. Yvonne: I think it certainly
Yvonne Barteau on GP Raymeister.
Yvonne: I don’t usually give my horses a vacation so much as I change their routine; to me you’re either taking a horse apart or putting it together with his training. All through the show season I’m making a list in my head of things we need to work on. Unless I have time between shows to get into an issue and really pull it apart and put it together, I’ll do that at the end of the season.
How long a break should they get? Phillip: I try not to go more than three weeks without
riding because then you start to lose too much muscle which makes it harder when you put them back into work. After a spring three-day event, like Kentucky in April, or even Bromont or Jersey Fresh in June, they’d get another two and a half weeks or so, but they’d probably just go out at night or during the day and be in a stall part of the time. I’d do about ten days of no riding, and I’d leave their shoes on for that. Yvonne: I don’t like give horses a few weeks off; I spent a long time at the racetrack and I found that when horses have too much time off, sometimes they get too fresh and injure themselves in the field or they lose fitness and then pull a muscle or something when you start them back in work. I try to give their mind a break but keep their body useful. If I sat around and watched TV and ate potato chips for a week and then tried to go out and do something physical, I’m sure I wouldn’t feel too great, so I try to keep that in mind for my horses, too.
is tougher today than it used to be, but each horse and rider has to have a schedule that works for them. Sometimes I’ll only take one horse to a show. If I need to qualify for something I may take all of
my horses to the show with me, to keep them in training, but not all of them have to compete in that show. I think I used to show them more and possibly too much, but experience gives you perspective. Once again you learn from the horses—they’ll tell you what they need. Everybody has to work out their own program. Sometimes you’re working on an owner or a rider’s goals, and that can be challenging, but you always have to be fair to the horse.
Susie Hutchison riding Cantano in the Grand Prix. Warmbloods Today 83
Kendra Erickson
fireandearthphotos.com
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