Training to Win: The Complete Training System for the Modern-Day Event Rider

INTRODUCTION

Horses are great levellers. The journey that is taken to train them to be the best in their field takes patience, empathy and refined skills, but most of all a correct, workable system. This book will help you develop your own training strategies thereby giving you the simple, fundamental exercises that will improve the all-important basics. Progression needs to be a passion that you strive for, a goal to be reached with the knowledge that the horse will only improve as the rider hones their own techniques. This book will take you on that journey of training the young horse to learn new skills, to develop as an athlete and to thrive in competition.

I hope that you get as much pleasure out of using this book as I had writing it.

1. Being the best isn’t about luck on the day, it’s about being incredibly well practised in every area of training.

Chapter 1

WHAT MAKES A CHAMPION

Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work gains success.

– Dwayne Johnson

Being a champion in any sport, but especially the sport of eventing, is not just about luck on the day. To be a champion you need to be more mentally and physically prepared than your competitors, able to perform at the highest of levels and to react to all the scenarios that competition might throw at you. The partnership between you and your horse needs to be explicit and the horse needs to be fully trained and prepared for all the questions involved.

I have worked with many riders in the past who have natural flair or what some might call talent, but they have not managed to be successful or stay in the sport for various reasons. At the same time I have also had the pleasure of working alongside riders who have had to overcome problems with their own skills and come out the other side to become champions. Why is that, we wonder? What are the ingredients of a champion? Why do some athletes make it and others fall by the wayside? The four main attributes the athlete needs to possess are:

Responsibility is something that is crucial when developing high standards and a podium mentality.

The correct training system.

A podium mentality.

A positive mindset.

Confidence.

Most of the text of this book is going to look in depth at a training system that is proven to produce athletes to become champions, and it will offer you an opportunity to build your own successful system.

We all know that eventing is the sport of three disciplines; dressage, showjumping and cross-country and they are all very separate in their own ways. However, within this book you will discover how interlinked the three disciplines become within the training, and the impact that can have on the efficient use of time.

1.1 Correct training system

A correct training system requires necessary understanding of the subject and a simple but disciplined approach. We will look at how you and your horse learn and develop strong foundations in your skills so we can build on them as you move up the levels together. I put the training system into three categories.

Training to learn

The first category is to develop the basic skills correctly and to coach the partnership to understand the procedure of learning. This is the most important part of training the horse and it is the foundation that we use to build everything else on.

Training to compete

The second and largest category of training is to coach all the skills required for the partnership to compete successfully at the appropriate level of competition. There are at least seventy skills that your horse will need to learn and become competent at. To develop good foundations it will often take five years to go from starting the 3- or 4-year-old to competing successfully at 4* level as an 8- or 9-year-old. Within the following chapters we will visit a lot of these skills and help you develop each one.

Training to win

The third category is progressing your horse and yourself to the level of having the edge over other competitors by bringing your competition work into your training. This develops mental and physical skills so that high performance is well within your comfort zone.

1.2 A podium mentality

Although the sport of eventing is often thought of as fast and furious, the modern day competition is highly precise, with medals won and lost in millimetres and split seconds.

Developing a podium mentality within your training is the key to developing high performance at the level at which you compete, whether it is at 90cm (3ft) or top senior level. A podium mentality is a way of working whereby you put 100 per cent into everything that you do to create a high standard. It’s about having strict discipline with yourself, your own riding posture, your preparation, your expectations, your daily system and developing a quality in your horse’s training that is of a high level of thoroughness. In Chapter 9 Training to Win we will look at marginal gains and how you can improve your long-term performance.

Changing your habits to have a podium mentality is a crucial part of your new system. Here are some examples of this:

Every transition needs to have thought, preparation and a planned place to execute it. With good repetition your horse should have the will to perform it correctly each time.

Every halt transition should be corrected so it’s square and consequently your horse never learns to halt incorrectly.

Every jump must stay on the line that you have approached the fence on, with a focal point to continue the straightness afterwards.

When trotting over poles or jumping a showjump always line up specific stripes on the poles to be exact to the millimetre.

Taking your own fitness and health as seriously as the horse’s.

2. Podium mentality.

Responsibility is something that is crucial when developing high standards and a podium mentality. If you take responsibility for your own actions you will develop the all-important no-excuse policy that will allow you to be a learner in life. This mental attitude will also be the key to developing yourself as a champion in your own right.

Here is an acronym on which I base my own coaching philosophy. This reminds me that everything that I do needs to have thought, preparation and be performed to the best of my ability.

Personal

Responsibility

In

Delivering

Excellence

1.3 A positive mindset

In life we are either learners or non-learners. We are either happy and excited to be challenged by the unknown, or we would prefer to stay in the safety of our comfort zone. Challenge doesn’t always mean bigger, higher or wider. Sometimes tasks that are out of the ordinary will offer a new learning experience – a necessity for an extensive toolbox. Where does our mindset come from? It is generally in our personality, but is also often influenced by an upbringing of beliefs, not just programmed into us by parents, but also by our role models, teachers at school, or coaches in sport. I have found when working alongside younger riders that the parental influence can have a massive implication on whether the athlete succeeds in the sport (or not, as sometimes the case may be). Here are some examples of how parental influence affects the rider.

If the parent was a high achiever in sport, or previously a sports person, they are often highly motivated and pushy and, when empathy is needed, it often isn’t forthcoming. This behaviour can have a negative impact by making the rider feel unmotivated as they are always trying to live up to expectations. Sometimes this type of parental influence can cause the rider to self-criticise too much and only put their belief in coaches who are pointing out their weaknesses rather than their strengths. The negative impact all this can have is creating nerves around poor performance and might make the rider either take unnecessary risks or even become risk averse.

If the parent has little equine knowledge or a lack of interest this will pose a big challenge for a younger athlete at the onset. They will often have to take responsibility for themselves to learn about all aspects of horsemanship and stable management. They will often be involved in sport from pure love of horses rather than parental pressures. This generally bodes well in their long-term involvement in the sport and creates the growth mindset from an early age.

The division between wealth and being financially challenged can have an impact on the athlete’s mindset from early stage. If, at an early age, the rider gets to partner expensive horses they will often refrain from challenge in the fear of potentially devaluing or reducing the performance. Equally, a rider who is financially challenged will learn early about values, equality and respect which, although it may be tough in the early stages of their career, will stand them in good stead for later years.

In my experience the following physical and mental attributes are ideal for an athlete to develop if they want to be successful.

Being concerned about improvement.

A passion for stretching themselves and sticking to the plan if things go wrong, instead of abandoning it.

A desire to overcome deficiencies rather than hiding them.

Not wasting time proving themselves over and over again when actually they could be upping the challenge.

Being happy to reveal inadequacies occasionally when having to put effort or risk into a challenge.

Being willing to learn how to deal with problems. When things don’t go to plan having a strategy, good basic building blocks and a sound, well-practised system.

Feeling privileged about pressure and using it as a positive rather than a potential enemy.

Having the ability to turn a problem into a positive by embracing something that doesn’t go to plan and creating success from it.

1.4 Confidence

Confidence is a mental state of mind that derives from the ability to perform a physical skill. Undoubtedly, confidence is the key to success in any sport, but it has to have a structure and system that sits behind it. Yogi Breisner FBHS always talked about a ‘cup of confidence’ that needs topping up regularly with work that is cemented with positive repetition. Then, if a bit of confidence is dropped, you have a system to fill the cup back up again and the combination will continue to be successful.

How to develop a horse’s confidence

A horse isn’t born with the skills to win a championship; skills need to be developed into the horse’s training. Using a step-by-step building block system (see photos 3, 4 & 5) you can develop good deliberate practice which, in turn, will create confidence with that particular skill. For your horse to feel confident the training needs to be comfortable, safe, unthreatening and enjoyable. When the skill is easy to replicate it is time to make the training more challenging. If, at any point, the horse looks to be worried by the question, a good trainer will drop the challenge back to a lower level, height or technicality. This will top-up confidence levels before repeating the challenge again. This will ensure that your horse always has belief in his own ability and scope.

3. These three images demonstrate a building block system. Start with the narrow flags and ditch.

4. Add a fence to the question.

5. The question in competition.

Rules to develop the horse’s confidence

Make sure that your horse is comfortable, sound and happy in the work.

Maintain a system of pressure and reward in training.

Use a small step-by-step approach.

Repetition, repetition, repetition and repetition of good practice.

Move the challenges up in small increments of height, technicality or intensity.

Regularly go back to skills that the horse can perform easily and well.

How to develop the rider’s confidence

Just like a horse’s, your confidence will come from the knowledge that you can perform the skill successfully. A successful system would be starting the skills in a familiar training area, before moving to a more challenging environment and then eventually performing the skill to a high level in competition. Confidence and belief can become very fragile in the sport of eventing, so it’s very important to have a good balance of success in your comfort zone and challenge in your pressure zone. If you are confident in a competition environment you can deliver a ‘can-do’ attitude that will allow you to handle what comes in your way. If you fall victim to self-defeating thoughts this can have a huge impact on your performance, so make sure that you have a good system in place and a responsible team around you to prevent this happening.

Rules to develop the rider’s confidence

Develop a systematic approach.

Aim for small improvements in all the basic work.

Build up and regularly practise all the skills required for competition.

Focus on performance rather than results.

Surround yourself with people who believe in you.

Chapter 2

THE ATHLETE’S PHILOSOPHY

What is a philosophy and why is it so important? It is a group of beliefs that you use to guide yourself to developing a successful system, which is often made up from positive experiences that you have had in the past. As a coach I find it is important to be open-minded within a training system as there are many alternative ways and techniques that work for different horses and riders. However, there are a certain number of beliefs to which, in my opinion, an athlete should adhere and these I class as the winning ingredients. You can call these beliefs ‘rules’ and they will encourage discipline, maintain good practice with a competitive outlook and provide a way of coping with outside interferences. Throughout this book you will learn how to develop your own system and rules that work specifically for you.

2.1 Understanding good practice

This is very simple in that we need to understand what it is we are striving towards. What does ‘good’ look like? What is ‘quality’? What is our ultimate aim in training? Why it is important only to follow ‘good deliberate practice’ and refrain from repeating poor or even detrimental practice. The following points offer some guidance on these issues.

The training scale is the most important guideline for riders and coaches.

Choose a reputable coach with whom you can discuss good working practice and who will focus on your performance so that, in turn, your horse will make improvements. It is the athlete’s responsibility to learn and the coach’s responsibility to promote good practice and facilitate the learning environment.

Familiarise yourself with the scales of training and their relationship to flatwork and jumping. The training scale is the most important guideline for riders and coaches. It is a programme of systematic physical education of the horse that helps to develop the physical and mental aptitudes of the horse. By following these principles the rider can train the horse to be obedient, supple and happy to work in training and competition. The essential principle for the event rider to consider is that the scales of training are used to train all three phases, dressage, showjumping and cross-country.

Watch, read and learn. There are so many social media platforms where you can find relevant information and good techniques – for example you only need to type in ‘rein-back’ and it comes up with ten or more different short videos of top coaches demonstrating how to do a correct rein-back. One very useful exercise I encourage athletes to do is write for a dressage judge at the level that at which they are competing, just to recognise how a dressage test is judged and to learn more about what the judge actually requires.

Remember, ‘correct’ is what keeps the horse in the sport for a long time. It is the horse working in a way that builds up his muscles to perform comfortably and carry the rider readily. It is what the dressage judge is looking to mark well and is in line with classical training. It is having an understanding and empathy with the horse and making him feel happy in his work.

6. The author coaching.

7. This horse is showing stretch and suppleness.

8. This image demonstrates elasticity in the neck and body over a fence. The rider has a soft, allowing contact and is staying in balance.