POINT OF VIEW Holly: Even though your horse is sound and maybe able
to do dressage and show jumping, with the CIC, if they’re coming back from an injury they might not be fit enough to do cross-country yet—they’re sound enough, but not fit enough. Sometimes you go somewhere and you’re not happy with
the footing; it’s too hard or soft, or there might be something about the course that you don’t like. If you’re gearing up for a big competition, like the Fork or Rolex, you might opt not to run cross-country at one of your preparatory events because you feel like the horse is sound and ready and you don’t want to take the risk. Sometimes a horse pulls a shoe or gets a bruise; something could also happen between dressage and when you decide to withdraw.
How about riding just the dressage phase, for the experience? Jessica: Because the opening and closing dates of events
[entries] are sometimes quite a bit out from the event itself, a lot of things can happen between the closing date and the first day of the show. A horse could have something minor going on that a little bit of dressage would not hurt, but with which one would not want to do any running and jumping. A lot of event horses struggle with tension in the dressage arena, so if you’ve already paid the entry money, why not get a chance to practice in the sandbox in front of judges? It never hurts to have more mileage and more feed- back to take back home. Peter: If it fits your training schedule, you can do dres- sage and show jumping before the cross-country at a CIC now, because they run those phases on Saturday and cross- country on Sunday. If it fits your schedule, I’d think it’s legit to skip Sunday. In eventing you put a lot of miles on the horse; just doing two phases can help you improve and still save his legs. Holly: Doug [Payne] did that at Rolex this year; he never planned on riding cross-country because he knew he was going to go to Saumur, in France. Compared to other events, Rolex is really cheap to enter—it’s like $100 - and it’s good practice to get the horse in that environment. I think if it was a thousand dollar entry fee you wouldn’t bother! In a horse trial I can see people signing up and withdrawing just for the experience, but in a typical CIC you’re not going to want to spend that much money and then withdraw.
What are a couple of scenarios where you might pull up dur- ing cross-country? A pulled shoe, a refusal or a tired horse, for example—have you experienced this and how did you know it was in your horse’s best interest to call it a day?
Jessica: Pulling up during cross-country can come from many different scenarios. Losing a shoe on cross-country
28 September/October 2014 Peter Barry competing at Rolex Kentucky 2014 on Kilrodan Abbott .
can be a tough decision. I think it comes down to what foot- ing you are running on and being very in tune to how your horse feels as he’s going around. Everything always has to be in the best interest of the horse, so if the horse is tired, not up to par that day, or just plain not in the game, it’s time to call it a day. It’s always better to pull up and live to fight another day. I have had to pull up on cross-country a few times this
year, as my horse and I were just not on the same page. We had some training issues that needed to be fixed. [Jessica dropped him back to the Intermediate level for a couple of events too.] Sometimes, there is no way to test a horse’s new bit or new training method without going out on course. Most of the horses that know their job can tell the difference between schooling and a show, so it can be dif- ficult to test a new piece of tack or way of riding at home, without having that gusto that they feel at a show. Holly: If you had two stops, rather than risk the elimi-
nation, a lot of people think it’s better on the horse’s record to show that you retired—you can give any reason in the world for a horse to have retired, like he pulled a shoe or felt tired—since show records are so readily available. Also if it’s just not going well, if you feel you don’t have control or the horse isn’t jumping well, it’s safer to just pull up. Also if the horse pulls a shoe or doesn’t feel right you’re going to retire. Most of the time it’s probably after someone has had a stop or two, and they’re out for a qualifying score since you have to go clean to qualify, you’ll pull up and save the horse for another event where you’ll try to get the qualifying score.
“In eventing you put a lot of miles on the horse; just doing two phases can help you improve and still save his legs.” – Peter
Jen Emig/Macmillan Photography
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