Lots of upper level riders have a groom or working student trot/hack/maybe light flat a horse to warm up before they get on to school. There’s nothing inherently wrong with doing that at home and it’s probably better than some of the alternatives.
Obviously not cool to do it in violation of the rules at the show.
As is being mentioned above, this is common in programs where one trainer is riding many horses. It is how they maintain a training program that size.
Eventing doesn’t allow anyone other than the competitor to ride the horse in competition, but almost every other discipline does allow it. So in eventing, having others warm up the horse is just at home, whereas with other disciplines it’s common in all locations. Owners know their warm-up riders as well as their trainer.
Using other riders to maintain the part of the program that isn’t as sensitive to the ride is, frankly, key to maintaining an income level from having horses boarding and training with them that makes horse training worth doing at all. It is not an easy way to make a living.
Riding is a physical effort. The human body can only do so much in a day, day after day. Especially after years and years of work as a pro trainer.
Many pro trainers in many disciplines have staff or working students warming up the horses that the ‘name’ trainer will ride after warm-up.
The trainer is the most valuable rider, in the difference that they make in the horse. But, it isn’t that important that they do the warm-up. They can teach competent riders how to get the horse ready for a short focused session with the one truly gifted rider in the barn, the pro.
There are trainers who spend only 15, maybe 20 minutes, per horse, for 10 +/- horses per day. But after that 15 minutes, the horse rides like a different animal. The effect is more significant than the other riders and it lasts longer, especially when this happens four times a week or so.
There are trainers who are riding three+ horses per hour for some number of hours per day, on most of their working days at home. And teaching some advanced lessons as well. There is one I’m aware of who will ride 10 horses and teach 5 lessons/coaching-sessions on a normal day, from oh-dark-thirty to way-past-dark. Fifteen minutes per horse, 30 minutes per human lesson, figure the math on the trainer’s day with only brief breaks.
And how much physical effort that is, several days per week. The more horses in training they have in the barn, the greater their earnings, but also the more physical work and coordination is involved. While showing positive results.
It is rare that an owner doesn’t know that this is the routine for their horse. An owner shouldn’t be surprised at this routine, while their horse is in a training barn. Any discipline.
And the ‘name’ trainer may be juggling the competition schedule that has them away from the home barn for periods of time. They have pressure to maintain their competition record to maintain their level of business. Plus just being out and being seen, keeps them relevant to their base of potential customers.
If clients are not satisfied with the progress their horse is making, not satisfied with the end result when they get the horse back, then depending on where they live, yes there are other trainers to choose with a good reputation. Plus the higher-end clients can send their horses to trainers in other parts of the country. Thus expanding the world of competitors, for each trainer.
IMO it is profoundly sexist to judge a female trainer more harshly than the many generations of male trainers who do the same thing. Female trainers who are also incorporating a pregnancy into their realm. While staying relevant to their customer base. The male riders also ‘have’ children but they don’t deal in the same way with the impact of pregnancy, childbirth, and frankly baby and child care later.
Figuring out how to make their whole life work out for them is how female trainers who want a family manage to maintain their riding careers. As is the case in any career field for any woman who also wants her own family, in or out of a barn.
Yep I totally get that and don’t have a problem with it at all, I was referencing her comment about it in the article because she referred to it as “cheating”.
My recently postpartum brain took it to mean that she is not yet fit enough to do it herself. Which made me wonder why she had that many horses entered at an FEI that quickly. I also can’t imagine riding a week after giving birth but to each their own!
Yep I totally agree and have no issue with it happening at home, only so many hours in a day!
Doing it at shows is a whole ‘nother can of worms…back in the good old days there was a limit to the number of horses per rider at events. Now some riders will have 8-10+ which is just mind boggling.
As I know you know well … Career-oriented child-bearing women everywhere have to figure out what they can afford to do, as well as what they can physically do, around having both a child and a career. Given whatever financial cushion their job offers for childbirth. Sometimes the ideal is not an option for them, based on whatever is the situation at work and at home.
I have no idea about this rider. But people seem to be harshly second-guessing her choices, based on the kind of pressures that society typically puts on women. Whatever their career.
Man, women really cannot win. I don’t know CP/have any knowledge of her as a competitor, but I really respected her posts on social media thanking Sharon White for jumping her horses in the final weeks of her pregnancy, and her posts thanking her team for getting her back so quickly. She does this professionally, the season is just starting, she wants to protect what she’s built, so she works like hell and leans on her village to get back in the saddle - what’s wrong with “glorifying” that? Ros Canter did it. My personal trainer (an UL eventer with two small children and one four star horse) had to do it. It would be wonderful if women did not HAVE to do it, but the reality of the sport is that they do (a discussion of the FEI’s maternity leave policy would probably be more interesting than putting a magnifying glass on one woman’s choices).
Exactly this.
Jonelle Price took a year off of competition for her first pregnancy, which she described as ‘easy’, but says she was riding 2 or 3 times a day right up until the birth.
Jonelle was back on a horse one week after her first childbirth to prepare for Badminton about 7 months away. She won that next Badminton in 2018.
Her comment on having children …
“But if if didn’t happen then, possibly it would not have happened. The time when we should have been thinking about a family, our careers had just started to gather momentum. I’d definitely been dragging my feet about it.”
Interview with Jonelle – scroll down for her comments on having children while maintaining her highly competitive riding career. She’s one of the elite eventers in the world.
agree to all of this. it is not unethical to have assistants and working students warming horses up, with the main trainer riding only 15-20 min. honestly preferable to lots of lunging, which is what plenty of other training programs rely heavily on. and like you said, that 15 min from the pro, after the horse is already warmed up, is incredibly effective.
My first job in eventing in the 90s was lunging and hacking horses to warm them up for a BNT before his rides at home…
…back when we actually paid people for the work instead of just bringing on umpteen working students to do it for free.
Does anyone have a problem with trainers having assistants/working students/grooms/whoever warm up horses for them when they’re schooling at home? That seems like a nonissue.
The issue is if someone does it at a competition, where it’s explicitly against the rules, and IMO should stay that way … not that I think a big name upper level professional can’t warm up their own horses, but I don’t want amateur clients to start having professionals schooling their horses before their rides at competitions. But it doesn’t sound like there’s proof anyone did have other people warm up their horses at the competition… just rumors?
Nonissue having the working students/assistants warm up the horses. I was doing that in the 90s as well in a show jumping barn. It was never illegal at HJ shows so I did it at shows too. In fact I often did the jump schools too, especially on the young horses who just needed to go jump around once or twice and see the new fillers in the morning. We’d each take a baby green and get through twice as many horse preps that way. But it was legal, key.
I feel sorry for CP having to do that, but I must say I willingly got back on within a week of childbirth and I’m just a lowly amateur with horses at home. As soon as I could pawn that baby off on Grandma I was back on a horse. I didn’t tell my OB when I got bucked off immediately, either! Note to self, when the young OTTB has had a few months off and your core has been destroyed by a 10 lb human growing inside you, LONGE FIRST.
The rule is also in place for safety.
Ehhhh. There are several disciplines that would argue that a pro taking the horse around first is safer for a less experienced rider and I don’t disagree with that.
I’m fine with the rules in eventing, and don’t think that there’s enough actual cheating around this to warrant RFID equipment
There’s proof. And not the only issue being referred to.
To elaborate, she was seen getting overly aggressive with a horse at Terranova because it wouldn’t go through the arches into SJ. She also had grooms riding her horses in violation of FEI rules, and then when told not to, she just had them go elsewhere on the property to ride. She’s been putting something in her horses’ mouths to get them to foam and hide teeth grinding for a while, also not permitted, but they haven’t been able to prove anything.
No, I mean if you aren’t warming your own horse up, you may miss a nuance that’s unusual that leads to a broken leg at fence 19.
[quote=“enjoytheride, post:410, topic:804602”]
I’m fine with the rules in eventing, and don’t think that there’s enough actual cheating around this to warrant RFID equipment [/quote] 
God I hope that doesn’t become a thing. I considered getting my medical bracelet tattooed because I’ll be damned if I can find the thing half the time.
Now I’m picturing horses going across a conveyor belt and over those scanners they have at grocery stores! “whiirrr…boop boop…that’ll be $27.95”
“And as for more lists, actually opposite of what I said … the lists are kept electronically for you, so the human only needs to double check/verify not actually keep the list. All makes life easier, not harder. All requires a learning curve, of course, but costs have significantly dropped and the technology is really neat.”
Every place I used to volunteer we had ride times printed and a clipboard, which could be really fun on windy or rainy days. By adding a number to verify to this, you need more space, which means more paper. Often, ride times would be two columns on one page (start top left, end bottom right, next page) so it was easier to track the times without having to flip so many pages. Adding a column would mean not as much room on one page so more paper to blow around, get lost, get wet, etc.
It’s absolutely toxic praising women back competing so soon after having a baby, I think it’s sad, you never get those early months back, racing around to events with a baby tow, risking your neck xc is not something to be admired.
My take on the time frame for returning to competition after childbirth is that it’s no damned business of anyone’s except the family in question.
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