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This time of year its all about the 5 Ps and these are:

Perfect Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

Assessment of your own fitness and that of your horse, not just your own but that of your team farrier, vet, physio, instructor etc is important.  Its better to hear a negative now than in the countdown (48hrs) before your first seasonal goal.  Which brings us to the Seasonal Plan.

So …sit down with your favourite beverage (mine’s a red!) and with all the show information/calendars etc that you need, decide which shows/events are most important to you as these will form the keystones on which to build your calendar.

Next write down you and your horse’s strengths and weaknesses and use that to figure out what you can do yourself and where you may need some help. Examples could be Dressage or Showjumping lessons for you and your horse, pilates classes, sports psychology for you.

Once you’ve identified the areas you’d like to improve use this time of year to go back to basics, try new things, review practices, see if you can do things better? View this as Training Time and when you go to competitions have achievable goals and see these days as part of your training.

In the competition season usually March or April – Sptember/October while you will still be training, the focus shifts and is now on competing.  Horses cannot maintain their peak performance all year, having a plan so you can increase and decrease the intensity of work will help your horse and you peak at the right times.  Each horse should have his/her own plan which you can return to regularly and adjust as necessary.

End of season is the cool down, opportunistic time so depending on your horse they can have chill out time in the field, go back to training before having a holiday or keep going with competitions, whatever suits them!

Finally its a great idea to write down any potential challenges so you’re at least prepared. These could include;

Financial – having to revise the budget eg.. because of lorry repairs.

Time – Family pressures could mean that you cannot do all the things you want to.

Injury – To the horse and/or yourself

 

As a Level 3 Coach I know that all level 3 Coaches across the disciplines can provide advice and be able to access the right information you need and am sure will be happy to help.

Good luck to everyone and the most important thing is to enjoy the journey inclusive of highs and lows.

Ps Remember every (canter) stride in the right direction is a good one!

 

 

 

 

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