Fitness Fundamentals
Fitness is the most important element of an event horse’s career. It’s the best way to prevent injuries and keep him healthy and happy into his later years. Asking a fatigued horse to continue performing can be dangerous, uneducational and discouraging—for both of you. For example, if your horse runs out of steam toward the end of a cross-country course, he’s more likely to make a mistake at one of the remaining questions, putting you both at risk of a fall and/or injury. If you’re at a competition in which the show jumping is the last phase, such as a CCI long-format three-day event, he won’t be able to perform his best in show jumping if he finishes the cross country exhausted.
The same holds true for you. In both jumping phases, your job is to sustain a correct, balanced position that never interferes with your horse’s own balance and jumping style. It’s also your job to help keep him in a proper frame and balance in the approaches to the jumps when he begins to tire. This requires physical (and mental) strength and endurance, especially if you have a very strong and/or lazy horse (yes, some horses can be both!), which can be exhausting. That’s why it’s so important to attend to your own fitness program as much as your horse’s.
How can you tell if you or your horse is not fit enough for your level? Imagine that he is like a car with five gears. On a really challenging cross-country course, you might lose a gear or two. I have ridden upper-level horses around five-star courses who sometimes lost the fifth gear after eight or nine minutes. That meant they couldn’t produce more speed instantly when I asked them to accelerate. But I
