Hopefully someone can recommend a trainer in the area who can give you an introduction to the sport safely.
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I donât know the CA events very wellâŠbut YouTube is lovely and often there will be full xc rides posted. Videos are always a bit deceptive though as to the terrain. But can still give you and idea. I originally came from jumpers but had some friends who were advanced level eventers who helped me out. There are a few tweaks to jump riding that you have to learn when doing xc verses SJ. But most experienced riders can figure it out quite quicklyâŠthen it is just getting more experience (and learning your dressage test!). I enjoyed jumpersâŠbut eventing was just more fun and interesting to me. I liked having to learn and perfect 3 different disciplines with the same horseâŠand the partnership with my horse. And it didnât hurt that I could be competitive on my $500 OTTB!
Where in Northern Calif are you? Is there a particular event youâre looking at? There are a number of us here who event regularly in NorCal and can make recommendations on trainers or events for your situation.
Welcome to the dark side. We have drinks.
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Rulemaking (like all legislation) is the art of compromise.âNot at championshipsâ was the tidbit given to satisfy the outspoken opponents to ANY whips in dressage.
NOT ârationalâ!
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General rule of thumb from someone who switched from H/J to eventing⊠if youâre doing the 3â hunter divisions, start at Beginner Novice eventing! 2â7" hits different when everything is solid 
Itâs so much fun. Welcome! Enjoy! Maybe find something unrecognized first. Go through the rule book. Make sure your bit is dressage legal. No one cares if you do dressage in your jump saddle.
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I had done just fine show jumping up to 3â6" and some hunters, for years, before I took up eventing. Rode iffy horses around clean courses, had done a lot of trail riding, bareback, re-training screwed up horses, all kinds of stuff.
I found that little of that was all that much help on XC! :lol: It was certainly good background for learning XC, but not for riding XC. Getting to the jump is completely different from sj, imo, in philosophy as well as technique. When first doing XC I never felt as if I were going to crash, just that I didnât always know what the horse needed from me, and how to get there and that didnât make for a confident horse or rider. :o
Nothing replaces a good eventing coach! 
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As far as your young horse âŠ
⊠If you were learning to play the piano for the first time, would you choose as your instructor someone else who was also learning to play the piano for the first time?
Thatâs you and your horse. Your horse needs someone experienced to teach him to play the piano. I mean go XC.
And it would help a lot if you could start on a horse with XC experience as well.
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As to trainers: I have a friend who has taken a couple lessons with a woman named Toora OâMahony, of Raydiance Eventing. She seemed to really like her and she apparently works with young horses too. I think I tried a horse of hers once before I came into ownership of my boy. Really nice lady, she didnât try to pressure me into buying him even though she knew I was getting hopeless in my search. Sheâs based out of Santa Rosa Equestrian Center, donât know where you are from Santa Rosa but I think she might be worth a try if youâre close. Donât know her rates.
Well thereâs my problem - I was trying to apply logic to figure out why! :lol: Thanks again!
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People do say thisâŠbut I do want to say, this isnât always the case or needed. I was a SJ riderâŠvery comfortable jumping 3â9 to 4ââ (on unfamiliar horses) when I first came to eventing. I had a fresh OTTB. I taught him to jump. I took lessonsâŠand I went xc schooling with friends (who had evented through Adv on several horses). My horse and my first event was at training level. We were just fineâŠnow dressageâŠdressage was painful to watch but we stayed in the ring! SurprisinglyâŠI had shown dressage as a kid (through 2nd level) but was rusty and much happier with my shoulders way to far forward (and was in a jump saddle). But the jumping phases were just fine.
Iâve taken other HJ friends out xc schooling. These were good riders. Their horses were not event horses but they rode them out of the ring. They were pretty quickly competently jumping training level jumps (we were very progressive in introducing the questions).
Will this be the case for everyoneâŠNO. But not everyone needs to be on a school master or stick to logs on the ground. Some will need to keep with thatâŠand nothing is wrong. My point is just that here in cyberspaceâŠwe donât know another riderâs skill level or their horse. Some transition to this like fish in waterâŠ(both horse and rider) others need to take time or it isnât for them. Getting some good experienced HELP is the biggest thing but that doesnât mean a more experienced rider necessarily needs to take over the reins.
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Jumper convert here! Everyone else has covered pretty much everything else, but wanted to say that the only different tack/gear you need is a safety vest for XC, and maybe XC boots for your horse. You want something thatâs not open front. No need to buy the expensive specialized boots for the lower levels, a pair of plain neoprene brushing boots will do the job just fine. Woof Wear are quite popular and come in fun colors if you want to go full eventer. 
Oh, and maybe a snaffle for dressage if you donât ride in one already.
Have fun!
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Completely agree. If youâre a competent H/J rider who is comfortable with hacking out, trail rides, hunter paces, all that good stuff⊠youâre probably fine to go around BN without much prep. Learn the rules. Make sure you have a vest for xc. Itâs not rocket science.
Also, be gracious when you finish your dressage test and the ring steward coos âawww, heâs just a baby, it will get better!â about your 14 year old 3â hunter who went full giraffe. Ha.
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It is important to learn how to ride effectively âin the back seatâ. Thatâll save you from many a fall.
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BN is very straight forward and if the horse is competent in the ring at 3â it is a good starting point. I grew up doing hunters, I did PC as a young kid but most of my riding has been in the hunters. For a few years I rode with some event trainers and got to go school on one of their horses a few times but not compete, 2 kids and 6 years later I am back to riding and bought a jumper last summer who had competed through the 1.15M but no XC or dressage experience. We have done one BN event and will probably do novice next time out, but mostly because we have now missed several events due to COVID and will be ready.
She is totally game and has taken to it great but occasionally things catch her off guard but nothing at the BN or N level out schooling, they have been training level questions. But with water, ditches and banks being options it opens the door for them to be a bit startled. I was lucky and she was fine with banks as one was on our course and all she had done was a very small step up/down before.
As far as dressage goes, the lower levels are pretty basic but still require acceptance of contact, consistent forward gaits etc. As well as some practice of riding in the dressage ring to really have your geometry down.
I too suggest getting some experience with an event trainer even if you are thinking about doing a smaller starter type event.
RULES.https://useventing.com/events-competâŠesources/rules
So many ways you can get eliminated. ie jumping the wrong direction in a warm-up, Refusals, missing a fence, time faults, tack. Vounteering is a cheap way to learn without blowing entry fees - and you will see about everything happen and especially at the lower levels. I was a timer at a hazard at a combined driving event. Along comes the married couple - her driving, him the navigator. They drove right past our hazard, waved! and never turned around and came back. That must have been a l.o.n.g. silent drive home ;).
There is a sticky on top of the eventing thread with links to many very informative discussions.
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If you havenât already, make sure to take your young horse out and expose her to as many similar elements as you might find on XC as possible. Fields, trails, logs, etc. If you have a local XC park, go out there and lunge, ride, hack, meander so she can see what sheâd be facing and get accustomed to the terrain.
I had a nice little hunter as my first horse who had an absolute meltdown the first time we went to the local XC park for a trail ride. He could not handle approaching simple brush fences or anything other than the basic logs, and going into the water splash was the worldâs biggest ordeal. He was notorious for refusing hunter fences that had yellow flowers as filler, but this was next level pansy lol. I wasnât particularly interested in eventing at the time so we never went out there again, but his next owner tried to event him without much success. â1000 time and refusal faultsâ came up on her SM one time and I had to laugh because I knew exactly what she was talking about.
So just make sure your mare actually likes the job haha. Sheâll need to be a confident horse who enjoys the challenge. Make sure you set her up for success! Start low and go slow.
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OP: where in northern california are you? Iâd be happy to recommend some trainers. The only events in northern California are Woodside and Woodland Stallion Station. There are more schooling venues though. Central California has Twin Rivers, Fresno, and Shepherd Ranch. All of those venues are wonderful in their own ways. Hopefully you can give cross country a try and have some fun with your young horse!
Lots of good advice here - the dressage portion will be very simple at BN - 20m circles, walk, trot, canter. You cannot wear (horse) boots of any type in dressage. You will get assigned ride times and you must adhere to them, especially in dressage.
The stadium course will be straightforward and will reward a steady forward tempo. Depending on the venue this could also be on grass, on not entirely level ground.
All fences will be flagged right on red and it is REALLY important that you pay attention to that in warmup. Everyone else will, and you can get eliminated for jumping a fence the wrong way, even in warm up.
It is a really fun and welcoming sport. Your fellow competitors will be happy to help and answer any questions.
oh, and you need either a medical armband or something like a road Id bracelet with medical info on it for all jumping phases.
Thank you! This is all super helpful. Now to see if I donât chicken out! @caevent I live in SF and my horse is in the Petaluma area.
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Iâm a newbie. I evented last season at Entry in Canada, think itâs between the US BN and N divisions. I was a relatively competent adult re-rider with ZERO exposure to eventing. I grew up on horseback, mostly western, took a decade and a half break, got back into it, mostly English H/J, and then my sister GAVE me my favourite horse, an OTTB mare. Didnât know what our âthingâ was when I got her. I just knew we did it in an English saddle and it most likely involved jumping over things.
I! Love! Eventing! I didnât know how much she and I would benefit from dressage (zero exposure to dressage, as well; I thought it was about freestyle and piaffes). I had suspected weâd really enjoy cross, but I had NO IDEA how much.
Iâve done a couple of small provincial HTs, with a small, unrated combined trial (just two phases, the cross and stadium are âcombinedâ) as our first show together (and my first of any type in over a decade) to prepare us. We actually won our (TINY) division at that CT. :lol:
Itâs never bad advise to learn on a horse who knows its job and have your horse learn with a rider who knows his/her part. However, my mare and I went from zero exposure to two solid (top third of the pack) placings in provincial shows over the course of 4 months. And if she werenât a coiled spring (ârelaxingâ isnât her thing) and hadnât started at the very bottom (literally! last and second-to-last after dressage!), weâd have placed even better.
Sheâs athletic, bold, and talented. Iâm definitely the weak link in our partnership. If youâre a pretty solid rider and your horse is pretty rateable, a pretty bold jumper, and has decent exposure to trails/excitement/the outside world, I wouldnât hesitate to just jump right in after a decent XC schooling. You definitely want at least one solid XC schooling day/clinic. We had one schooling day, it ran sort of like a clinic with my coach, groups of around 8 riders, saw a little water and a few different kinds of fences on different terrain. After that day, I felt absolutely ready for my first HT, and I was mostly correct.
I grinned like an idiot through our entire first XC course, even being approached by some jump judges later, as the level of fun I was having was soooo apparent that they felt compelled to comment on my grin. I only showed in 4-H stuff as a youth, and I remember showing being stressful, hard work, and involving tears. Well, I cried at my first HT, after our XC course and after our best jumping round ever in stadium at that show. But they were happy tears!
I found the community to be incredibly friendly and supportive, and the atmosphere was light and fun. It was an incredibly freeing experience, less about ribbons and more about doing an exciting, mentally and physically demanding, and VERY fun two-day adventure with my mare.
Hope you get a chance to explore it and have a blast! I have some tips about being a newbie and walking your first couple of cross courses if youâd like to hear what worked for me.
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