How to keep your
eventer sound...

The single most important factor in keeping a horse sound?
Who better to ask than our National Eventing coach, Wayne Roycroft. Wayne competed at three Olympic Games and winning team bronze at two. More recently he has coached Australia to a record breaking three gold medals in a row.
"It’s a personal thing. Basically I believe that the legging up is the most important thing. Not necessarily a huge amount of walking – but walking and trotting."
"If the horse has had any sort of an injury at all, then obviously the footing you work on, is so important. You can handle it maybe a little harder than you would like but you can suffer anything that is unlevel. The footing has to be a flat surface."
"The soundness thing is in your preparation and your preparation is your foundation to your fitness – meaning you don’t do any very strenuous with them until you have them well and truly legged up."
"The other thing you need to think about is if you turn your horse out for too long, you have to build up that soundness again. If everything is right with the horse, the spelling should be for their mental, not their physical, capacity. Every preparation you do, is more miles you take off the horse. You should – if it is possible – be looking at doing more events under the one preparation. This has gone out of fashion a bit, they say if you do three 3 Day Events in a year, you might be stressing the horse too much. I know my Dad would do three 3 Day Events a year, plus the two or three One Day Events leading up to them, as a normal practice, He never had a horse break down – tell a lie, he had a horse that he wasn’t riding, break down in Rome, that was Sabre. He had no tendon problems whatsoever and he prepared 25 horses that were selected for, or competed, at the Olympic Games."

 

 

Nick Roe is a vet as well as being a top level eventing competitor. He asked for the right to nominate two crucial consideration: "Feet and Conformation."
Olympic gold medallist, Stuart Tinney also placed stress on feet and conformation, but when it came to ongoing measures, stressed the working surface:
"To keep them sound you need good going. At home we have a sand arena but it is more what you do when you leave that sand arena… and come to events. If you get to an event and the going is not good enough, you don’t run."
Do you use a galloping track?
"We have a trotting friend around the corner who has three sand tracks so we are very lucky with that. We try to do a little hill work, but that depends on weather conditions because the ground can get a bit hard where that hill is – we use the hill when the going is good, otherwise, the sand track."
Niki Chapman:
"First of all, you’ve got to buy a horse that is suitable for the job. I always get very thorough vet checks done on the horses I buy. Make sure the conformation is good. Once you’ve got that, then your initial base is good. Then working them on good surfaces keeps them sound. Not running them too hard at every event. If I go to an event and I feel the going is too hard, then I won’t start them. If they are desperately in need of a run, then I take it easy, and look after them. I always ice my horses after I gallop them. My lead up gallops for an event are always done at the beach. I think that is the best surface you can gallop on. It is so consistent and so good. Then I walk them in the water during the breaks, and ice them when I am finished."
Phillip Dutton’s success on the international eventing scene, owes a lot to his enormous riding talent, but his horsemanship, and ability to manage his horse’s soundness is also legendary.

His secret?
"Know your horse. That involves trotting your horse in hand on a regular basis – at least once a week. Try to time the trot after a stressful day, whether it is a lot of jumping or a gallop day, the main thing is to get to know your horse and how he looks. Then you need to diagnose any trouble you have. If your horse always comes out a little short on his left front, then you need to block the leg out and figure out where the pain is coming from. Then you can treat it, or you can leave it, but at least you know what you are dealing with. Then if it gets a lot better, you can get worried – or if he goes lame in the other leg, you can get really worried."
You work a lot closer with your vet, Kevin Keane than most Australian riders do with their vets. He visits you every week, and rides out of your training barn, is this a great help?
"I do work very closely with Kevin but I think most vets want to share their knowledge and help you. If you show that you are really interested, then once a week if you are on his line of call, he can drop in and look at your horse for 15 minutes – most vets are pretty helpful that way. You don’t always need a vet there to help you – you do need to educate yourself about lameness and that takes a little practice, and having someone who knows lameness to explain it to, and show you what to look for. I’m very fortunate having Kevin based next door, and he enjoys riding so I help him out that way. That is not to say, you can’t utilise someone in your area – get to know your vet, and also work closely with your farrier."