In this exclusive article for H&H subscribers, five-star event rider and Fellow of the British Horse Society Kylie Roddy shares her tips on how to prepare for arena eventing competitions, as well as advice on how to be successful in competitions
Arena eventing can be a great way to sharpen your skills over the winter – but perhaps you’re looking for some tips? You may need to do some training first and are not sure what to focus on? Or do you want to improve on your performance from last season with a view to being more competitive?
We asked renowned trainer Kylie Roddy for her top tips for arena eventing. Kylie won at the championships of British Eventing’s previous arena eventing series, Jumping And Style (JAS), and judges arena eventing competitions.
“There is something for everybody with those classes – it’s all about what your expectations are and whether you’re looking for ‘ride skills’ or ‘competitive skills’,” says Kylie. “For some it’s about educating a young horse, others are going to train and school and then there are those looking to be competitive.”
Kylie Roddy taking part in an arena eventing competition.
(Image credit: Peter Nixon)
Kylie’s arena eventing tips
Whatever your aim, Kylie says there are two main areas she focuses on for everyone in arena eventing training.
Keeping a quality canter
“Typically arena eventing courses are longer than your average showjumping course – there might be 20 or 24 fences, so twice as many as on a showjumping track,” points out Kylie. “So being able to keep the canter and the adjustability and quality in the canter is important, from 70cm all the way up to prestigious indoor competitions for top riders like Stuttgart, and there’s a fitness element to that.
“The speed required is faster than a typical showjumping round at the level, but it’s also not like you can just settle into a gallop – the courses have a jump-off type feel with turns and changes of pace needed, so the horses have to be fast in their mind and you have to be able to ride in balance at a higher speed.”
Kylie suggests riders put on an eventing stopwatch (like this one) and canter for two to three minutes around their arena, without jumps.
“By the time you’ve gone round an arena 10 times, you feel like you’ve done quite a lot of cantering, but it might actually be only 45 seconds. It feels very different cantering for that time in an arena rather than a field, and most of us are arena-based in the winter,” she says.
“Also, don’t just ‘goldfish bowl’ around the outside of the arena for however long – build in 10m circles, loops, changes of reins. Create the turns and floorplan patterns you might find in the course you’re about to jump.”
Jumping out of turns
Kylie also likes to focus on horses being able to come out of a corner and jump a fence quickly without the horse being shocked.
“Course-builders have to cram a lot of fences into the arena and to make sure the horses have a landing view, they have to put things quite close out of turns, so the take-off side is squeezed up. Horses have to come out of turns, stay on a line and jump what’s in their way,” she says.
“You need to get a bit adventurous in building stuff out of turns that doesn’t look like a normal jump, whether it’s high on the outside and low on the inside, has a funny filler or stuff on the floor, like a water tray or tarpaulin, or a narrow fence to test accuracy.”
Arena eventing training includes teaching horses to take on unusual obstacles off short distances out of turns.
(Image credit: Peter Nixon)
How to be more competitive
For those looking to challenge for a rosette, arena event training needs to focus on holding a line and jumping off angles. Because many of the fences fall down, speeding up by flattening the canter is likely to result in faults, so it’s all about saving time in the floorplan.
“You need control on the landing side,” says Kylie. “I see a lot of people out of control on landing. Those pairs find indoor cross-country more of a challenge than those with a naturally rhythmic way of jumping. If the canter expands on the landing side, the rideability disappears and there’s often another fence coming ups, so the ability to reset the canter on landing quickly and maintain a rhythm is crucial.”
Arena eventing kit tips
If you normally ride across country in shorter stirrups than showjumping, you may want to consider that shorter length for arena eventing.
“You’ve got to be able to stand up between fences to create the travel,” says Kylie.
“Make sure you are comfortable in your kit… you might have had a Christmas lunch!” she says with a smile.
Tips for on the day
With so many fences in a small area, arena eventing courses can be confusing.
“If you’re not the best course learner, make sure you are there early enough to walk it a few times and understand where everything is,” she says. “Watch the first couple go and if you’re aiming to be competitive, see how their time compares to the speed they rode. Did they make any inside or sharp turns? Use others to gauge what works and assess how the track rides.”
Make sure you have time to learn the course at arena eventing.
(Image credit: Peter Nixon)
“Make sure the canters you’re going to use are the canters you warm up in so you have those tools available to you as soon as the bell goes,” says Kylie, explaining you need to be able to expand, close and reset the canter.
“You need the ability to go from 40mph to 30mph to 20mph and back to 40mph – those won’t be the actual speeds, but that’s the equivalent for those who drive a car. You need the ability to go down that scale as well as up it.”
Keeping confidence is key in the warm-up.
“The training is done at home and horses will do what they are trained to do in the ring. If you do six fences and the horse is happy, that may be enough. Nearly all faults come in the final third of the course, as horses and riders hit the fatigue zone,” says Kylie, cautioning about overdoing the warm-up.
“If you have a spooky horse who you need to get enough jumps into, make sure you leave a long enough rest period afterwards before you go in.
“If you want to be competitive, ideally you’d jump a fence off an angle in the warm-up so the horse is truly tuned into that, but whether you can do that will depend on the size of the warm-up and how many people are there.”
Tips for in the arena
Don’t throw away all your arena eventing training in the arena. Kylie says the most common mistake is allowing too much speed without the correct line, particularly turning early when going faster and running past fences.
“Don’t go faster than you can ride competently with rhythm, balance and line – those three things are the all-important triangle,” she says, warning that riders can be so keen to ride at speed, they lose their accuracy.
Pippa is a true eventing geek and has been H&H’s eventing editor since 2005. She has first-hand experience of competing up to British Eventing intermediate and international CCI2*-L level, and has worked in the industry on a top event yard. Pippa enjoys nothing more than immersing herself in the sport at the highest level, reporting from the five-stars and international championships, including the Olympics.
