United States Eventing Association

Kim Goto Miner is a member of the USEA's Classic Three-Day Committee. She runs her business, KGM Eventing, in Camarillo, California. She's an 'A' Senior member of the Santa Rosa Valley Pony Club (California) as well as a National Examiner. She's secretary of the Ram Tap Horse Trials in Fresno, California, and a passionate supporter of their Classic Three-Day Event. In her other life she's a mom to two boys.

Conditioning plans can vary from 12 weeks down to four weeks. The most important thing is to remember that the plan should fit the horse and rider, not vice versa. There are general templates but all schedules will look different and should be tailored to you and your horse’s specific needs.

Is your jump lesson with your instructor on Saturday? Then giving your horse a rest day on Friday is probably not a good idea. If you are a full-time working adult that rides under the lights before or after work? Then building your gallop day on a weekday is probably not very realistic. Other things to consider before creating your plan: How fit are my horse and I currently? Are there health/injury issues that I need to consider when building my plan? What are the likely weather conditions at the venue that I have chosen to run my Classic Three-Day?

Once you’ve answered these questions, then you can start to come up with a plan.

Personally, I like to build my plans based on a normal seven-day week schedule. I also like to base my week on a Monday through Sunday schedule. If I am planning my end goal for a Classic Three-Day in the fall, I set my calendar out and first mark all other activities I might have in the months leading up to the event (i.e. other horse trials, weddings, weekends away, etc). Then you start building your plan around your schedule.

Decide your realistic availability during a “normal” work week and base your plan around that. Ideally you will have between five to six work days within the work week but adjustments can be made if that is not realistic. Just know that if your work week is shorter, then your plan will probably be longer. Make sure you give your horse on to two rest days per week and vary your week with cardio days and skill days.

Look at the USEA Omnibus listing (or the previous year’s omnibus listing) to guide your fitness goals, making sure to note the length and speeds on all phases. The best way to gauge fitness is to check your horse’s vital signs right after work and in 5-minute increments post workout to gauge their recovery rate. You will have to know your horse’s normal resting vital signs before you start this process.

Keep in mind what you predict the weather to be during your Classic Three-Day. If it's hotter and more humid than your training temperature, you'll want to have your horse more fit. This goes for yourself as well.

Cardiovascular fitness develops faster than musculoskeletal so if your horse is coming back from an injury, your plan will have to be much longer and slower. Horses also retain cardiovascular fitness much longer than humans. If your horse has already been fit and has just been on vacation for a short time, your conditioning plan can be quite short. Unfortunately for us humans, we lose our conditioning quite quickly so make sure you do not plan any long breaks in your fitness directly leading up to a Classic.

There are many different ways to condition a horse. I like to use a variety. Long slow distance (LSD) work is the basis for most conditioning plans and should be the start with any horse who is unfit or returning to work from an injury. Many plans start with basic walking in the tack. My equine chiropractor likes to remind me that some of the fittest horses he sees are his ranch horses who have to go out on 10-hour long cattle drives. But since most of us do not have 10 hours to be hacking our horses around to get them fit, we do a mix of other conditioning plans to help along the cardiovascular system.

Personally, I mix in interval training, cross training, and hill work when I can. In a normal five- to six-day work week for my horses, one day will probably be assigned to some sort of cardiovascular exercise. The rest will be a mix of dressage and jumping skill days which will work on musculoskeletal strength. If I am competing at a horse trials on a weekend, I use my cross-country competition day as my “gallop” for that week.

And lastly, I will put a small reminder again regarding rider fitness. We are not good partners to our equines if we are not fit enough to do our job. If we are gasping for breath, barely able to keep our balance around the last few fences, then we are doing our equine partners a disservice. So, just as important as it is for our equine partners to be fit, it is important to keep ourselves fit as well. And although we have many other options for getting fit (running, swimming, Pilates, yoga, etc), there is nothing that gets you fitter quicker to ride as riding itself. I encourage most of my students to hack with their stirrups short and in their two-point position for at least five minutes per week.

So, go reach out to your instructor, look at your calendar, and put that plan together to get your horse and you fit and we will look forward to seeing you at a Classic Three-Day soon!