Hi, my name is Kaitlyn and I just joined the forum. I was in search of some help training my horse to be an eventer. Here is our history. I am 19 and have been riding since I was 10. I ride mainly Hunter, but I have for the last 3 years shown Western pleasure, reining, barrel racing, hunter (jumping and flat), dressage (a little), some gaited horses. I have trained several horses and done a well rounded job. I have a horse, he is a stock bred paint horse. He is 5 1/2 years old. I just started jumping him at 2ft at the age of 4. So now we are moving up to 3ft this year. he loves to jump and clears everything with room to spare. Doesnt care to face any jump with me and him together. Our relationship is strange. Sometimes its hard to know where i end and he begins. He is trained both english and western has done barrels and reining. I trained him myself for the first year then sent him to a professional trainer for 30 days to work on finer things. He came back to me and had learned alot but was a very unhappy horse. I want to train him for eventing because that is my dream. I have done a little of it before and read up on it alot. What i want to know is how can i start him? im not sure exactly what bit would be good for dressage or jumping? He rides in a broken kimberwick with a curb chain but i know those arent allowed in dressage.. Also he is a little heavy on the forehand. How can i fix that? what are some small things that him and i can work on to build our relationship and prepare him for the complexity of eventing? How do i know if he can be an eventing horse? I know he loves to jump and he has so much heart he does anything and he loves the finness of dressage but... I dont by any means want to hurt him or make him unhappy? are there ways i can help him become fit for cross country? Any advice will be greatly appreciated! sorry for the long winded post, but I wanted to give as much info as I could.

HI and welcome to the forum. You're doing the right thing by doing all the research you can.

There are lots of good books on training horses for eventing, such as Sally O'Connor's Practical Eventing and Starting Out In Eventing:A Introduction to Having Fun Cross-Country.

 Even though you want to train your horse yourself, the best way to do it will be to take lessons from a trainer that specializes in eventing and can give you and your horse the skill you need to enjoy eventing safely and happily.

Eventing can be fun - it gives you a chance to do a variety of things - dressage, jumping and cross country. Most horses, provided there aren't any physical issues, can be event horses at the lower levels. I never got beyond training level myself but had a blast with it.

Then as you get into showing at actual events you'll get a feel of how you and your horse are taking to it and when and if you can move up to the next level and of course, your trainer will be keeping an eye on both of you to see how you're progressing.

 

The best bit for low level eventing is really just a regular snaffle.  You mention your horses is heavy on the forehand and you (along with your trainer) can work on that with lots of transitions, changes of direction, half halts etc. that get your horse focused on you instead of just plowing along doing his own thing.

To get your horse fit for the cross country,  it takes mileage, mileage and mileage.  But that's not to say you should gallop every where.  Most conditioning work is done as interval training in walk and trot, before introducing intervals of canter or gallop.  

Again, a trainer can help you with that aspect of it too.

I hope this has helped.  Good luck to you.

If you're not particularly knowledgeable about eventing, find an eventing trainer to give you some lessons. There is too much information that exists in the field of eventing for any of us here to give you everything you need to know. In addition, training face-to-face is so much better than getting instruction from complete strangers on a forum

Thanks that does help me :) I do have a trainer lol she gives me lessons and she along with some other ppl say they think Kobalt can be a money eventing horse. She works with me as many times as I can afford, however I wanted some outside advice. I am going to try him in a D snaffle and see how that goes. We do a lot of hill work at the trot and canter, he is very extremly fit already. But i really would like to focus on our relationship alot..Do you have any advice on how i can work with that? I started some natural horsemanship work on the ground, but I was wondering if there were any other ways i wasnt aware of? Would doing some gymnastic work help him become lighter on the forehand? see I dont have an arena. All i have is my pasture and a cross country stretch which i can put jumps on. I am trailering to an arena once a week too tho.  

 If you want to spend some time doing NH ground work with your horse it probably will help the two of you bond and your relationship will improve.  I'm not an expert in that field at all but anytime you work at making it easy for the horse to undertand what you are asking, and letting him know the second he's done what you asked, things will go smoother.

Several years ago, I wrote an article entitled Training on the Trail which may be of help to you since you don't have an arena to work in.

Do more of the natural horsemanship ground work to improve your relationship, and see if you can find a NH trainer to take some lessons from. Again, getting face-to-face NH training is better than reading a book about it. I read a lot, but I also take NH lessons to round out the reading. A good NH trainer will help you get your horse off his forehand, as well as help you connect with him. An eventing trainer would be able to teach you to get your horse lighter, too. Most eventing or NH trainers have their own arenas, so you'd have somewhere to ride your horse for the lessons.

If your horse is heavy on the forehand it means he's not using himself and that takes correct riding and conditioning.  Riding him in a stronger bit is not going to fix that.  Riding him correctly will.  If your trainer is not helping you with this than I would say it's time to move on to another trainer.

I agree totally with BHK. If your instructor has not told you how to ask your horse to be lighter, you need another trainer/instructor not a different bit. Try an eventing or NH trainer, since that is where you interests/needs lie now.

Right now a good dressage trainer is probably the best idea.  Someone that's very classical and correct.  Someone that will focus on rider position.  It all starts with dressage, then when you want to move in a different direction you have solid basics to build upon.

Kaitlyn:

he loves to jump and clears everything with room to spare. Doesnt care to face any jump with me and him together.

Kaitlyn:

he loves to jump and clears everything with room to spare. Doesnt care to face any jump with me and him together.

 

maybe i'm misunderstanding this.....if he doesn't care to face any jump with you, who's been jumping him?

anyway,i think you could do well with doing some nh exercises and groundwork for bonding your relationship tighter.  i think you're too old now, but, i learned about eventing in pony club.  it was a great experience.

have fun.  sounds like you guys have a terrific future.

Kaitlyn:

he loves to jump and clears everything with room to spare. Doesnt care to face any jump with me and him together.

maybe i'm misunderstanding this.....if he doesn't care to face any jump with you, who's been jumping him?

anyway,i think you could do well with doing some nh exercises and groundwork for bonding your relationship tighter.  i think you're too old now, but, i learned about eventing in pony club.  it was a great experience.

have fun.  sounds like you guys have a terrific future.

Hey and the answer to that is... sometimes my friends ride him or my trainer. And he doesnt want to jump for them he will dodge out or refuse. Same way with anything if someone else is riding him. For an example i took him to that training barn and they run rodeos so they have bulls down there and the guy asked me if he would run cows and i said yes cuz we have done it many times. and he tried to use him to bring in cows that evening and kobalt wouldnt go within 50 feet of the cows is what he said then made fun of me and said i didnt have a true horse, Then 2 days later i told him id help bring in the cows and kobalt worked them like a dream. He just does things for me that he wont do for anyone else. he only lets me catch him in the pasture and such things actually is agressive in the pasture to other ppl if im not there so no one can go in there. That was just kinda an example of how deep our relationship goes. its like i can read his mind and he can read mine and i just want to see how far we can go with that. Like can we deepen it and become closer than we are already type thing.

 oh, so he does care to face any jump with you.  i took it to mean he wouldn't jump with you.

sorry.  confused.

 --gail

 Eventing is a community -- I would start with www.discovereventing.com and go from there.  Check out USEA's website.  Look at your local combined training & dressage association's calendar -- there are probably some schooling horse trials in your area and we are a volunteer-driven sport.  The most valuable learning experience you can have is to go volunteer at an event (you don't have to have experience) and learn how the whole system works.

It's very different from any other discipline I've ridden it -- it really is a supportive and positive crowd and it's SO much more than just putting dressage and jumping together.  Each are a part of it, but really, we all do it for XC -- because once you ride or school cross country on a good horse, you can't wipe the big grin off your face.  If we wanted to play in the sandbox, we'd ride straight dressage, but instead, we know the partnership and incredible rush of galloping between the finish flags after a clear course -- and all the hard work it took to get there.

I may be a wee bit biased........

 Great post Solo.

 

You?  Biased?  Naaaaah.