Who knows for sure about the horse, but back to back horse shows? I CAN’T HANDLE IT (or afford it). Plus I really like this other place called the beach 
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I’ve only read the first/original post, but I think that it’s your personal opinion. Some people do courses 2x a week, others do 1 a month depending on what they think is okay(and some people are completely wrong, but it’s not all the same for each horse). Talk to your trainer & your vet and figure it out through them, they know your horse, we don’t.
No two horses are exactly the same, you can’t say “he’s healthy” and “14.2 hh” and expect a bunch of strangers on a horse forum to automatically have a set amount of what’s okay for him. This is something for your trainer and your vet.
If he’s fairly comfortable with 90 cm at home, you better make sure that it’s the same off site, you should never think “well, he free jumped 3.5 feet with no tack, so he could probably do that with a rider in a show…” obviously that’s not what you’re doing, but my point is that some people think that whatever their horse did once, they can do again anywhere.
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It all depends on the horse, the events, the rider.
Personally, I usually only event once a month, with maybe a dressage show or a show jumping show in between. But that is as much because that is what is comfortable for ME as what the horse could do.
Belle is 21 and has been Eventing since she was 6, so 15 years. Most at Training.
Music competed for a similar time, she is now 31 and still sound, but poor eyesight rules out any jumping.
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Vinny…I don’t like to compete every weekend. I didn’t say not to ride and train everyday or its bad bad bad for your horse. And at least around here…fox hunters are not traveling huge distances to get to the meet and it is not the same experience as hauling 2 hours to show IMO.
OP…At your level, I have done back to back weekends on a greener younger horse when that is what fit in the schedule better. But in general…my pocket book and my own energy doesn’t have me doing a competition every weekend. Plus I find that you don’t then have enough time to really train and improve so you are just in competition mode. To me, a competition is part of my training program…but I try and schedule things and aim to go places that both will help improve my horse AND that I think I will enjoy doing. It’s all about coming up goals, then a plan to achieve those goals (in pencil because things change) and keeping it balanced and reasonable given your goals.
BFNE, around here foxhunters will travel for hours to hunt. I’ve been a member of a hunt which required 3 hours of one way hauling for me and the horse; people come from New Orleans to Jackson, MS for hunting; the Memphis hunt hauls 75 miles to several of its fixtures. I just assumed that foxhunting in much of America required hours of travel. I agree that competition is a level of stress that many people don’t want to have to face with great frequency, but a properly conditioned horse shouldn’t have problems with weekly lower level eventing.
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Nope…not in Cheshire or a lot of the hunts here in SE PA. Most live pretty close to the fixtures. Most haul tacked up as it is only a few minutes away with several who can hack over from their farms to more than one fixture.
So what about Prelim? I see a horse who did a Prelim last Sunday doing one this Saturday. 7hr haul each way. Seems like too much to me. Another horse going Training who did the same last event.
It depends so much on the horse and the rider and the travel.
YEARS ago, I had two horses that I took out basically 6 weeks in a row, both for VERY specific reasons. My greenbean just needed to go out and experience life. A bunch. And he did and he was the better for it. My training level horse was a total chicken at first, and needed to just go jump lots of jumps (schooling xc was not cutting it. He needed the competition vibe). By the end of that period, the young horse was a pro and the chicken horse was dragging me around the courses. He went from chicken to a xc machine. BUT, with the exception of one show (that only the older one went to), all events were close by (no more than an hour from home) and one days. It was also spring, so not super hot. They also basically just hacked and maybe tuned up their dressage between events. And they both got a nice loooooong vacation after that (I think their last events were in June, and they didn’t go out again until late August/early September). Would I do this again? Probably not. Would this appropriate for every horse? Hell no. Was exhausting? You betcha! But it was a productive course of action for THESE two horses. Neither one did anything like that again. The lessons they learned carried over very well.
I have occasionally done back to back weekends, though after novice I avoid it, and after training it is definitely not something I do. My horse did best at prelim by going out every 3 weeks. That was enough time for him to regroup but not enough time for him to go feral on xc (longer than 3 weeks and I HAD to take him xc schooling or he would be a hell raising beast on xc. I hated xc schooling him, though (he needed to gallop big fences to get that out of his system), so I always tried to schedule him 3 weeks at a time!
I also consider travel and stabling. If I had to travel and stable all the time, I would not be as likely to go out as much. But with so many one days close at hand, it takes less of a toll, I think. If I have to regularly drive all day and stable for 3 or 4 nights, I wouldn’t go out as much (couldn’t afford to!).
I just like to remember that trailering 1 hour is equal to 1 hour of walking exercise. 2 hours = 2 hrs walking etc.
I also like to stick to this: a horse needs an equivalent time trailering to resting before more work. IOW an hour to the event/show/clinic, horse needs an hour of rest before the ride.
So when a person says “oh x horse can do two 5 minute dressage classes no problem!” depending on the location, that could mean 3 hours of walking (trailering), 30 mins warmup x 2, two 5 min classes, and 3 hours “walking” home. That’s over 7 hours of “exercise,” the stress of a new place and upset feeding schedule etc.
A great many horses will have absolutely no problem with that, and some will be full of adrenaline and seem really up at the event, crash afterwards, get ulcers or be utterly exhausted for a few days.
It really depends on the horse’s mental state, the distance, the level of fitness, the driving ability of the person hauling, the weather (heat), the hardness of the ground and on and on.
So the rider going Prelim back to back had a fall. The horse hit the second to last fence, apparently he wasn’t being “careful”.
To me that says tired. It’s frustrating we have a dangerous sport and so many riders who just don’t think of the consequences of their selfish actions. Do we need more education or more rules ?
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It’s an N=1 - certainly not enough to make a rule change.
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I wish I could like this post a 1000 times.
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No, the horses need more and better conditioning, which could be rider education. A horse should be fitted up long before its competition season begins.
Packy McGaughan’s Between Rounds COTH article asks the question why US horses don’t have long competition careers. There’s a direct link in his Between Rounds post here.
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