Even though I use to event in my younger days, it turns out that at my advanced age of 28, I'm perfectly happy to ride volte circles, shoulder-ins, and leg yields all day long. I find riding dressage to be to most fun and rewarding thing out there. Unfortunately my horse, Kalvin, is of a different opinion. If he is over-schooled on the flat, he becomes bored, cranky, and resistant. It is for this reason that I'm going back to my eventing roots to develop a training plan with a bit more variety to keep him happy in his work.
I've already started hacking a couple times a week and added a "Sunday jump school" into our training regimen. This has had such a positive impact on Kalvin's attitude and work ethic that I've decided to go all out on the eventer training plan. This means added fitness work on top of the dressage and jumping work. Who knows. If Kalvin hasn't sold by next year, he may be going beginner novice at the the Inavale Horse Trials.
So as for the new training schedule
Sunday: Jump school
Monday: Dressage lesson
Tuesday: Hack (with fitness work)
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Gallop
Friday: Dressage followed by trot sets
Saturday: Off
While I personally may not ever take Kalvin to an event, I'm hoping that whoever he ends up with will give him the opportunity to shine in this discipline. He really seems to love the work, and can already do all of the dressage movements up to preliminary :-D His jumping is coming along very quickly and I'm sure will catch up with his dressage in no time.
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