Now would be a great time to have a performance exam for your horse to check their baseline soundness. Should there be any maintenance necessary, planning that out from the arrival date of the event so that the horse has optimal time to adjust and to be absolutely clear of any drug or meds rules is ideal. We do run under USEF rules.

Now is also a great time to discuss any additional therapies, bodywork, or even nutrition changes that may be beneficial to your horse as their workload increases. This can be started by explaining to your vet the changes you plan to make in your horses training and the logistics of the event itself to help them better decide what (if any) things should be adjusted.

No Foot No Horse

Having a cohesive team between your vet and your farrier is ideal when making a plan for your big trip to the Carolina Horse Park.

The first consideration is to discuss any findings in the horse’s performance exam with your farrier in case of adjustments that need to be made.

The second part of planning with your farrier is making sure the date of their final scheduled shoeing before the event hits a sweet spot for your horse. Ideally that will be around 10 days before the first horse inspection. That planning may take some adjusting from a few months out!

Finally, you’ll want to have any discussions about studding knowledge that you feel you might be lacking. While the footing at the Carolina Horse Park is lovely and sandy, deciding what (if any) grip your horse may need to stay confident shouldn’t be left to the last minute. And whatever set up you decide on, you’ll want a spare set of shoes that has been shaped recent enough to be ready for application should you lose a shoe on endurance day (more on packing and preparing those shoes in a later article).

Lifestyle of the Long Format Horse

Besides the big endurance question – just being at the long format event asks things of the horse that they may not have experienced before.

The first thing is the sheer time they will be on the show grounds. Typically for the event, horses arrive on Wednesday and stay through until Sunday. This is a longer time in a stall with no turnout than most horses experience. Starting to plan how your horse may adapt to this (brief) lifestyle change is important. Will they get slightly less mindful about leading them around? Will they need to graze more if they aren’t used to eating solely hay for forage? Do they tend to stock up while spending a longer time in a stall?

The second thing is the amount of time we spend obsessing over them. For some horses, they are very used to their alone time, and suddenly being groomed 27 times a day is a lot! Start to try and anticipate the needs that may come up for your horse now so you can work out your schedule accordingly.

Conditioning

The biggest question that the Classic Format asks is if  you have done the preparation in your conditioning program. While the years of endurance day lasting for hours are gone, the amount of time you will spend active in the saddle on endurance day is a bigger ask than what most lower level event horses experience.

Each horse has different requirements when it comes to their conditioning program.Working with an experienced trainer to develop a conditioning program that allows for enough fitness without going overboard is important.

Conditioning considerations:

• Type of horse – ‘Blood’ horses (thoroughbred/arab types) tend to be naturally more fit than warmblood or draft horses. Understanding what type they fall into will help to determine what your conditioning program will look like.

• Prior fitness levels – A horse that has been extremely fit in the past may have a better baseline fitness than a horse that has loped around Beginner Novice its entire life.

• Terrain – Understanding how to ride on terrain is an important aspect to the conditioning program. Not only will the rolling hills of the Carolina Horse Park be an important part of the competition, but utilizing available hills in a conditioning program will help reduce the necessary mileage.

• Rider fitness – Rider fitness plays a huge role in the success of a Classic Format competitor. The sheer time in the saddle and added difficulty will test the rider’s ability to support the horse through all three phases, but especially for endurance day.

• Recovery time – Knowing how your horse recovers from strenuous activity will help your plan on endurance day. It will probably still be quite warm in North Carolina at the beginning of September. Start looking now at how long it takes your horses TPR (temperature, pulse, respiration) to come back to normal after being elevated and experiment with what helps them the most – ice, walking, relaxation, etc…

Team Building

As the competition draws near, it’s time to start building the team of people that will be with you at the event. That might be just one person, or it might be 4 or 5! Having people (or a person) who is supportive is the most important. Cool under pressure, knowledgeable about horses, having classic format experience, and someone who knows your horse are all icing on the cake!

The good news is that there will also be lots of friendly, knowledgeable people at the event who will become a new part of your team when you need them!