Creating a Weekly Riding Schedule for a Busy Rider

Eventing places many demands on a busy rider: horse workouts, lesson feedback, travel, competition entries, equipment checks and stable work can quickly compete for the same hours. The task is to protect the essential sessions while leaving enough room for preparation and recovery.

A weekly riding schedule should therefore be a decision-making tool, not a list that simply copies every available hour. It shows where the horse’s work, your own energy and unavoidable travel sit, making trade-offs visible before a coach or competition demands a last-minute change.

Dom and Jimmie Schramm’s eventing careers provide the context for a practical approach. The best timetable is realistic enough to follow on a wet Tuesday, balancing performance goals with ordinary life: early starts, school or office hours, family duties and the care of a horse at home.

Start with the commitments you cannot move

Treat fixed commitments as the framework. Put competitions, lessons, farrier visits, veterinary appointments, physiotherapy, paid work and family events in the calendar first. Then add horse-care tasks that depend on a particular day, such as a vet arriving before noon or a farrier needing access to the yard.

Next, set a small number of weekly priorities: the horse’s key fitness goal, one rider-development aim and one cross-country or dressage objective. When a course or lesson has a specific fence question, advice on tackling a drop fence can help turn that goal into a realistic session. Everything else becomes optional rather than another source of pressure.

Map travel, weather and stable time

Australian travel can dictate the shape of a riding week. A rider based in Sydney may travel towards Camden or Scone, while a Melbourne rider can face a long run from metropolitan tracks to regional competition grounds. Add float time, traffic, loading, unloading and horse rest to the riding time rather than treating travel as a minor gap.

Local conditions matter just as much. Brisbane and Adelaide often demand early, cooler sessions, while southern riders may work through cold, wet mornings and sudden heat. Check the forecast, ground conditions and daylight-saving changes before placing hacks, gallops or long-distance travel.

Allow a buffer for the ordinary friction of Australian stable life: a delayed float, wet access roads, a full service station or time spent helping another rider catch a loose horse. A schedule with ten-minute buffers often works better than one built on perfect connections.

Balance training with recovery

Recovery is part of the programme, not leftover time. Alternate harder schooling with lighter work, keep at least one genuine day away from ridden exercise, and watch whether the horse’s appetite, gait and willingness remain normal. For a rider with a demanding job, active recovery can mean an easy hack, groundwork or a quiet walk, depending on the horse’s needs and veterinary guidance.

Non-riding work still requires time. Turnout, feeding, mucking out, tack cleaning, hay delivery, medication and competition paperwork all belong in the week. The local market offers coaches, equine vets, physiotherapists, farriers, feed suppliers and float services, so compare availability and travel costs when deciding which appointment can move.

Design sessions for energy and focus

Match the session to the energy available. A tired rider may benefit from a calm warm-up, precise flatwork and a planned cooldown; a fresh rider may be ready for jumping or cross-country work. Write the intended outcome at the top of the riding block, then choose exercises that support it instead of trying to complete an ambitious lesson on a poor day.

Rider preparation counts too. Mental rehearsal, visualisation and a consistent pre-ride routine can make travel and competition pressure feel manageable. When confidence or concentration is the limiting factor, Caryn M Sullivan’s site offers another place to explore professional development and performance ideas that support the wider training plan.

Build fitness gradually

Eventing asks the horse for speed, stamina, balance and trust, so fitness should rise gradually. Use hills, interval work and regular gallops to develop strength, while tracking workload and giving adequate recovery. A compressed run of hard sessions may produce fitness on paper but leave the horse physically and mentally tired.

Training the horse to handle pressure is as important as physical work. Familiarisation, controlled exposure and preparation for unfamiliar terrain can prevent avoidable stress before competition day. Schramm Equestrian’s guidance on event-horse mental preparation provides a useful framework for treating composure as a trained skill alongside fitness and technique.

Review the week without rewriting everything

Reserve a short weekly review, ideally on the same day each week. Check training load, sleep, soreness, mood, lesson feedback and logistics. If a session was cancelled, decide whether it needs replacing or whether recovery would be more valuable. This prevents one missed workout from triggering an unrealistic make-up plan.

Use local knowledge to refine the next block. Coaches, competition grounds, feed merchants and veterinary clinics operate around regional demand, and their timetables can determine when serious work happens. Early online entry deadlines and popular clinic dates are easier to manage than last-minute bookings.

Before finalising, check current competition requirements through Equestrian Australia, the relevant state or territory branch and the host club, including gear, boot rules, waivers and insurance. Animal-welfare duties also sit under state and territory law, such as New South Wales’s Animal Welfare Act 1999 and Victoria’s Animal Welfare Act 1988. Public-road crossings still require compliance with local road rules.

Make this week the plan you use

Turn the timetable into a live plan this week. Open the calendar, enter the next three fixed commitments, place the horse’s priority sessions beside them, and protect at least one recovery window. Add lessons and social riding only after those anchors are secure. Share the result with anyone who helps with transport or stable duties so the plan is understood.

Then give the schedule a test period of two weeks and adjust from evidence rather than pressure. If the plan repeatedly clashes with work, family or horse care, change the optional blocks first. Build the schedule now, keep it visible, and let consistent execution drive the next week.