It’s often hard to gauge the right cross-country speed. It depends on the terrain, the gradient, the weather, the fences, the type of horse you are riding. However, if you don’t know the feel of what tempo is correct, making the optimum time can be something of a lottery.
This exercise trains you to judge distance and pace, and develop feel for the correct speed. Plus, it builds fitness and stamina at the same time – and gets you used to operating a stopwatch.
It’s an exercise I loved using with my eventers at all levels up to intermediate to help me judge our cross-country pace, especially when moving up a level. Only ever having one horse at a time and doing few competitions a year, I found it hard to develop the judgement and feel required. This gave me both practice and added variety to our fitness plan.
Develop feel for riding at the correct cross-country speed for your level
Build fitness, speed and stamina
The setup
(Image credit: Future)
For this galloping exercise, you’ll need sufficient space to ride at least 500m in a stretch on good, safe going. Typically, where you do your usual fitness work.
This could be on a gallops, around a large field, or making the use of set-asides, where you have the landowner’s permission.
According to the level you are riding at, measure and mark out the distance as shown in the diagram above. For instance, if you are riding at BE80, measure 435m, marking the start and end points – you can use bushes or fence posts if they’re memorable enough.
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You need to have space before and after, so that you will be able to maintain a consistent gallop throughout the measured stretch. This allows sufficient space to start and pull up safely.
How to ride this exercise
Set a 1min countdown on your watch, so that it is ready for you to press start.
Warm up in walk, trot and canter so that you are ready for a fitness session.
Well in advance of the start marker you have set out, establish a good canter/gallop rhythm at the pace you feel is right for your competition level.
Press start on your watch as you canter past the start marker.
Maintain this canter tempo all the way to the end marker, noting when the minute beeps. Are you at the end marker or way off?
Walk or trot to recover, then repeat the exercise, adapting your tempo according to whether you were too fast or too slow.
Tips and troubleshooting
1. No obstacles
Don’t forget that when fences are added in competitions, this will slow your overall tempo, so you ideally need to be well inside the minute over the measured distance – but this exercise will give you a good rhythm in your head to aim for.
2. Ask a friend
If you don’t have a watch, or struggle to operate the buttons while on a galloping horse, ask a friend to time you. However, it’s handy to practise using a stopwatch as they are permitted at all levels.
3. Variation
You can also practise a standing start, as if you were in the startbox. Once you have the feel of the tempo at your level from a galloping start, this will show you how much time you lose – if any – at the beginning.
4. Keep it up
Not everyone has the space for this, but if you have access to a long or circular gallop, the ideal situation is to measure several consecutive 1min distances, so that you can maintain the gallop for longer, as appropriate to your horse’s level and fitness. This will show you whether you lose time after minute one, and will also help improve your horse’s stamina.
5. Level up
If you’re thinking about moving up a level, also measure out the distance for the level above – for example, you could measure both 435m for BE80 and 450m for BE90, and try riding to time over one minute for both distances and seeing how much you have to increase the tempo.
Martha is an experienced journalist who is mad-keen on horses and dogs. Her reporting CV includes the Paris Olympics, European championships, Aachen World Equestrian Festival and World Cup finals. After growing up with assorted liver and white springer spaniels, she enjoyed 14 years with two rescue dogs. Now, her constant companion is Fidget, an extremely energetic and habitually muddy black and white springer. Martha has written on topics as diverse as a top horse’s clone to the best GPS trackers for dogs, as well as equestrian and rural matters for Country Life, The Field, The Times, The Spectator and The Telegraph alongside Horse & Hound.
