2025 season planning

I know you might need to bear with me here. It's just November and the 2024 season only just officially ended... But let's focus on something altogether more exciting and motivating - 2025 season planning.

Now at this point in the year it's too early to know which rides are running on what dates but we can make an educated guess based on previous years as to which rides are likely to happen and when.

Also, we don't have to know the exact rides at this stage - more to come up the grand vision and overall aim and work out what we need to do to achieve that.

Now for each of my horses I have very different ambitions and goals for them because of course they are all individuals and they all have different medical histories, ages and experience levels which is going to influence what I ultimately want to achieve with them and when!

Chip

My darling Chippy will be 16 next year and the 2024 season has proved that he really can't stand up to the long training anymore. As such I would simply love for him to escort the babies on their 30km and 40km rides and be the 'sensible' adult to help get us through the inevitable scaries we may see on course and at the venue. I'm hoping he can manage to do this without medical intervention but I fear that he will need to have his hocks and/or fetlocks supported to manage even this level of workload. I plan to take him for his usual MOT at the vets in January so we will see what they have to say.

Fern

The longest standing slacker I own 😂. Fern will be 9 and my biggest aim is to get her to complete a 40km. She has had a lot of medical problems and my equine podiatrist (also my sister) has been working so hard to get her feet into better shape to support her. This has pretty much taken all of 2024 but her feet are barely recognisable now! Her full body MOT in January revealed there's not much else wrong with her apart from her shocking Thoroughbred feet so if we can keep up the good work I am quietly confident that we can manage a Novice season in 2025.

Raine

My darling Raine will be rising 6 and with any luck might have just made it to 15.1hh by then too. I have been desperately patient with her simply waiting for her to grow and giving her the best opportunity to make the height by leaving her in the field with a balanced diet and ensuring she is getting enough exercise on the track system and not getting too fat either! The goal with her is the same as Fern, to get through her Novice rides. Now I do have a bit of a plan to double up with the horses and I'm hoping that a friend will be able to ride one and I can ride one so that all three can have an active season.

Zest

Zesty girl is going to be a big 3 years old next year so there's not too much for her to do other than keep being the wonderful self that she is. I do intend to get her to the Futurity Grading again and also some in-hand shows. I did have all the best intentions of doing that with her this year but the summer has simply slipped away without me realising. Anyway, we still have plenty of time!

Season Planning

So those are the goals but what about the plans!

For me, these rides are stepping stone rides only and not the end goal and so therefore I'm not remotely concerned about grades or placings at this level. In fact, I actively teach my babies to vet in as quickly as possible as I am trying to teach them the way of vet gates in years to come.

Even though Chip doesn't need to learn this of course and Fern is likely never going to compete beyond 40km level (if we even get there next year) I'm just not motivated by a low finishing pulse. I just want them to be sound and to have enjoyed my ride.

For Chip especially, I think it's going to be important to vet quickly to avoid him getting stiff at the end of each ride. The babies are going to be a different matter but hopefully they will be calm enough to vet quickly - let's see!

Here's a rough season plan:

Note I've not put any rides in for March, July or October. March because the weather is typically too vile still to even attempt it and why bother training for rides in the worst of the weather when you can simply give it another month and hopefully stay dry!

July & October there's usually no rides locally to us apart from the one I organise so I can't exactly ride there can I!

This is obviously dependent too on when the ride dates actually get released as I will try to choose rides that are fairly local to avoid excessive travel or needing to stay over where I can avoid it.

Training

The good news is that I don't think you need to do very specific training for 30-40km rides anyway. Natural/genetic capability combined with 24/7 turnout and a little bit of riding and groundwork is often enough to get them through the rides slowly and carefully. A typical month could look like:

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