Читать книгу Geoff Teall on Riding Hunters, Jumpers and Equitation - Geoff Teall - Страница 71

Plan your training so you and your horse peak at the horse show and not at home the week beforehand. A part of the art of competing and the art of training is to get that breakthrough round at a moment when it really matters. Careful preparation is the key to ensuring that you and your horse are in top form when it counts.

4.5 Lessons are about learning, not about achieving perfection.

When planning a peak performance, as with everything else related to your goals, you must start at the end. Articulate what you want to accomplish during the upcoming season. Have a sense of what you and your horse must be able to do in order to reach your ultimate goal. Identify the different stages of training necessary to get to that goal and work on them.

Your ultimate goal is to ride perfectly when you need it most. That is not during a lesson. Lessons are about figuring out pieces of a puzzle, filling your bag of tricks, and developing skills and tools.

Horse shows allow you to put the pieces, tricks, skills, and tools together. To that end, if you think that you need ten horse shows in order to do things right at the “Really Big Event,” you must take each of those ten shows into account.

Plan your year all the way to the end. If it is January now, and you want your best performance to happen at a big show on October 15, you must address the following questions:

 Am I entered in the right shows to make qualifying for the October event possible?

 How can I, between now and then, participate in enough horse shows to qualify, but not so many that my horse ends up tired, sour, or lame?

 How can I compete in enough shows so that I am experienced, but still have enough time at home to work on my basics and make sure that I have honed my skills?

 How do I arrive on October 15 having shown in enough pressure situations to be able to be competitive, but without overdoing things and being worn out?

 How much time do I need to rest before the big event in order to be sure that my horse and I are fresh?

There are no easy answers to these questions. But, you do your horse and yourself a huge favor if you address them early in the season, instead of careening toward a major event with no forethought. Ask yourself the pertinent questions. Then, based on your answers, arrive at a plan.

More importantly—as the show season progresses, follow your plan. If you find that your plan was too ambitious, by all means reevaluate. But, don’t allow early successes to make you overreach your original intentions. That is how horses get injured or sour, and how riders get burnt out.