At The Back Gate

Hello again!
   Today I will be talking to you about tree day eventing. The three phases are Dressage, Show Jumping and Cross-Country.

Dressage:
   Dressage is the french word for training and is the "ballet" of the horse world. It has many "moves" like the Piaffe that is when a horse trots on the spot. Secondly, we have the Pirouette and that's when the horse plants his hind hoofs on the ground and spins around. Next is the Rein Back which is when the horse walks backwards. Another one is the leg yield where the horse moves sideways. There are many more but those are the top four.
   When you are preforming a Dressage test, the bell goes and you have 45 seconds to enter the arena or you are disqualified. When you have entered the arena, you go to "X"(middle of the arena) halt ant salute the judge. After that, you go on and do your test while including and three paces (walk, trot, canter). There are various paces for each pace. Shorten walk, lengthen walk, free walk, working walk, collected walk, shorten trot, working trot, lengthen trot, collected trot, shorten canter, collected canter, working canter, lengthen canter. After you are done your test, you come back to "X" and salute the judge then breathe because your test is over. I've seen many people over practice a dressage test then when they go to a show, their horse seems almost robotic. That's all for Dressage, on to Show Jumping...!

Show Jumping:
   Show Jumping is when you go into a HUGE grass arena and memorize coarse of jumps. Basically, you enter the ring, they announce your name and you horse's name, a bell goes and you start your round. When your approaching a jump, you want to make sure that the white flag is on your left and that the red flag is on your right. The rails on a jump hollow, therefore making them light and easy to knock down. Every time you knock down a rail, you get four faults, if your horse refuses a jump, you get one fault and if you go over time, you get one fault for each window of five seconds. Say you jump a clear round and another horse jumps a clear round it goes to jump-off. A jump of is basically a race against the clock. If both horses jump a clear round, than the horse with the fastest time wins. There are lots of different types of jumps. Here I will list three of the most common. The ever difficult triple-combination is a row of three jumps spaced one, two or three strides apart. Next we have the faux-stone wall which is a stack of hollow plastic blocks made to look like well, a stone wall. Then the 4 foot double oxer which is two jumps placed one in front of the other increasing in hight. These are often painted with spirals, stripes and other dizzying patters with wing and flower boxes on the side to scare the horse into refusing the jump. That's it that's all... to the cross-country course!!!

Cross-Country:
   Cross-Country is the most exiting of them all. The jumps are solid so if you run into one, chances are, your horse is going to break it's legs and you are going to end up in the hospital. There are twelve jumps on a course that include a log, a creek, the hogs back, stairs, drops, log piles, hay bails, liver pools, jumps in the liver pools fences, rocks, park benches, brush fences, ect... You start in a box, the starter bell goes and you take off at a gallop towards the first jump. ALWAYS SLOW YOUR HORSE BEFOR A JUMP!!!!   You've taken your first jump and enter the woods and you see a creek looming ahead of you. Chances are, the banks are going to be muddy on both sides so you slow your horse and clear the jump. Two minutes later, you exit the woods and you see the finish line so you start galloping and you win the class and take home the blue ribbon.

   Thank you for reading,
   Laurel