Mid-January is the time when I usually sit down and plan our competition schedule for the coming season. In the past this has been a simple job that involved half an hour in front of the laptop with British Eventing’s Schedule of Events (fixture list), a calendar to make sure we don’t overbook ourselves and a spreadsheet to calculate travel time.<\/p>\n
Travel time is a big factor. Horseboxes, you’ve probably noticed if you’ve ever been stuck behind one on the road, don’t travel very quickly and I like to have Vin in transit for the minimum amount of time.<\/p>\n
There are three reasons for the slow speed of horseboxes; passenger safety, passenger comfort and do you know how large vet’s bills can be?<\/p>\n
I don’t like travelling for more than an hour and a half to a competition; although Vin is a great passenger and he rarely gets stressed or upset, I’d rather be safe than sorry.<\/p>\n
When I lived in Somerset (with the late and still very much loved and desperately missed Beech) we were spoilt for choice; we had many One Day Events within the notional 1.5 hour travel limit.<\/p>\n
From our last base in Worcestershire there were far fewer to choose from.<\/p>\n
This year from our new base in Oxfordshire it’s even more complicated; I don’t know the local venues! Oh sure, they’re all listed on BE’s schedule and with the help of a webservice I can work out how long it would take to drive there but… I don’t know them!<\/strong><\/p>\n Not knowing is a massive disadvantage. For example, if we were still living in Worcestershire I wouldn’t go to Llanymynech again, not after last year. And probably wouldn’t go to Eland Lodge again either. But I would definitely have Stafford Horse Trials on the ‘Must Do!’ list.<\/p>\n The other thing to factor in to the mix is that some competitions in our new area may not be the most appropriate for our experience and maturity.<\/p>\n Just as some of the top class Events are marginally less difficult and less technical than others, the same is true through all BE Events. And at this stage of our career I’m looking for the easier competitions within our chosen degree of difficulty; scaring the living daylights out of this fledgling One Day Eventing partnership isn’t on the agenda!<\/p>\n British Eventing has restructured the competitive playing field; have introduced a new level and renamed some of the lower ones. The level we compete at has been renamed BE90, the new name being height related.<\/p>\n Speaking of degrees of difficulty, our dressage continues to improve and I’m 100% confident in Vin across country over even the most difficult, technical, twisty track of fences, gates, drops, ditches, coffins, trakehners, walls, corners and whatever else they care to throw at us.<\/p>\n But the red mist that comes down in front of Vin’s eyes when he sees a course of neatly laid-out coloured poles is going to happen at any level. Until we can successfully train him out of it.<\/p>\n Anyway, back to the topic; planning the season ahead, and this is related to knowing the venue.<\/p>\n I also take in to consideration things like the layout of the venue as well as the size of the place and how busy it is and how well organised the whole thing is. And I look at the position and management of the working-in areas for each discipline (dressage, show-jumping and cross-country for the equinely-challenged who have struggled thus far in to the post).<\/p>\n Believe me, warming up for dressage in a cowshit-infested field that is thick with uncut stinging nettles, is on the sort of downhill slope a winter ski resort would kill for, with the whole thing next door to the intersection of three major motorways, five ‘A’ roads and a major rail line, is underneath the landing approach of Heathrow Airport, is so close to the lion enclosure that all of the horses can smell the lions (and all of the other big cats and the baboons too) and consequently the horses spend much of their time up on their hind legs waving their forelegs around whilst trying to make a bolt for a safe place somewhere in the next county, and where you’ve also got to cross a rat-run of a country lane to get from the lorry park to each phase of the competition, where there’s no catering, the toilets are a bucket in a cattle shed and… well, you get the picture.<\/p>\n Not that such a place exists, I have just exaggerated a bunch of gripes I’ve heard over the years and slung them all together to illustrate the kind of thing that I also take in to consideration.<\/p>\n The reality is that this awful illustration couldn’t be much further from the truth in the most part; the modern Eventer is usually very well cared for by the modern Event Organiser.<\/p>\n And rightly so! It really isn’t a cheap sport and, let’s face it, it is the continued weekly participation of the tens of thousands<\/strong> of part-time amateur competitors, such as me, who go such a long way towards paying the sport’s bills!<\/p>\n But I’m sitting here, way past my normal deadline, looking at lists of One Day Events and travel times and trying to puzzle out whether that one<\/em> is a ‘must do’ or a ‘don’t do’ and whether I’ve heard anything (un)favourable about this one<\/em>.<\/p>\n And I can feel the adrenaline already.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mid-January is the time when I usually sit down and plan our competition schedule for the coming season. 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