Walking cross country twice: a habit that saves my season

Walking a cross-country course twice might sound like overkill when you're juggling work, horse care, a float that is perpetually covered in dust, and the mounting pressure of getting Archie fit in time for the start box. Yet every seasoned eventer I know swears by it, and after years of competing right across the south-east corner of Australia, I will not turn up to a course walk without budgeting time for two passes.

The first pass is brisk, almost businesslike. I am only looking for the big picture, the rhythm of the course, and the spots where the track makes a sudden turn I would not have spotted from the back of my horse. The second pass is slow, deliberate, and quietly forensic. That is when I make decisions I will rely on at full gallop.

This is the routine that has quietly rescued me at venues from Boneo Park on the Mornington Peninsula to the rolling paddocks of Adelaide, and the one I lean on more strongly now that Archie is stepping up a level. It is not fancy, it does not require a clipboard full of notes from a coach, and it costs nothing but time.

If you have ever wondered whether a course walk really matters, or whether one lap is honestly enough, I have a quiet pitch for why doubling up is one of the smartest habits I have built into my pre-event preparation.

The first pass: reading the spine of the course

The fast walk is about catching the shape of the day. I start at the start box and move at a confident, clip-along pace, mostly looking ahead rather than down. The goal is to register where the course climbs, where it ducks through trees, where the footing changes from sandy loam to that thick black clay that pulls at a horse's tendons after an Adelaide spring rain, and roughly how each combination sits in relation to the next.

I treat this first pass like a reconnaissance flight. I want to know where I will need to ask Archie to lengthen, where I will half-halt and rebalance, and where the questions come thick and fast enough that I cannot piece together a plan on the fly. By the time I reach the finish flags, the course should sit in my head as a story with a clear beginning, middle, and end.

I also use this first lap to time myself roughly between fences. Australia's courses are often longer and more exposed than what I grew up walking, with treeless gallops between obstacles, and that changes how I plan energy. At Werribee, for instance, the open ground between fences means I cannot rely on shade or a headwind break, so I need to know where to set up before I commit to a fast rhythm.

The second pass: slowing down where it counts

The slow walk is where the real work happens. Once I know the shape of the course, I head back to the beginning and start again, this time with my eyes on the ground, the fences, and the alternatives. I stop at every numbered obstacle and ask Archie to stand quietly while I examine each element from multiple angles.

This is when I check the tyings of brushes, the depth of ditches, and the position of frangible pins. Cross-country in Australia has shifted heavily toward frangible technology over the last decade, and understanding whether a pin is set to MIM or to a lower level changes how I will ride the question. I also look for the painted lines that show an inviting alternative route, then choose not to take it.

By the time I complete the second lap, I have committed to a list of must-remember moments: the line I want through the corner at fence four, the spot where I will switch my lead before the water, and the exact canopy of trees under which I will slow Archie from a hand gallop before the final combination. The slow walk turns ideas into concrete habits.

Spotting the things you cannot see at speed

It is almost impossible to take in everything on the fast lap because a body cannot process that much detail at a walking pace above four kilometres an hour. Stuffing the ground, soft spots after recent watering, a divot left by a previous competitor, a sprinkler head half-hidden in long grass near an offset brush, all of these blur together when you are moving too quickly.

The slow pass brings them into focus. I have walked courses where a subtle gutter between two jumping efforts was not properly flagged until the advanced level walked it, and I have seen a sunken track beside a keyline that pushed riders offline at the Adelaide Three-Day Event. None of this is visible from a brisk lap, even for experienced riders.

Australian venues are particularly sneaky in this regard because our courses are often built into natural farmland rather than purpose-designed arenas. The ground tilts, the grass varies, and the fences settle into the landscape in ways a manicured English course rarely does. Two laps, one fast and one slow, give my brain the chance to register these quirks before I am trying to read them at twenty kilometres an hour.

Choosing lines that suit your horse

Every horse sees a course differently, and this is where the second pass becomes about Archie, not the cross-country designer. When I slow down, I start thinking about his strengths and his current limitations. He has a big, careful jump and a tendency to drift right coming off a left-handed corner, so I spend extra time on any combination that requires a left-to-right departure.

I also use the slow walk to think about combinations I might need to ride a stride deeper or wider than the posted optimum. At the Sydney International Three Day Event at Willinga Park, I remember walking the second pass and choosing to add a stride on the approach to a bounce that had caught out half the field the year before, simply because the footing turned from sand to grass halfway in. That single decision kept us in the ribbons when others had frangible pins go bang.

The slow walk lets you tailor a course designed for the field as a whole to one specific horse and rider. That tailored thinking is the real difference between competing and actually eventing.

What I do between the two walks

A lot of riders treat the two course walks as one long visit and forget to eat, drink, or plan logistics in the middle. I am guilty of this when I am nervous, so I now keep a small checklist. Between the fast pass and the slow pass, I sit on the tailgate of the float, drink water, eat a sandwich, and text my coach the questions that came up on lap one.

I also use this window to refresh myself on my-routine-for-polishing-archie-s-coat-the-morning-of-a-competition, the small coat-polishing checklist I wrote about last year. It is a quiet anchor in a busy day that keeps me grounded before I tackle the second lap.

Once I have asked my silly questions, finished the sandwich, and emptied the coffee cup, I head back to fence one and begin again. By the time I am halfway through lap two, every reasonable worry has been answered, and the rest of the day can be spent schooling and resting rather than panicking.

What a course walk cannot replace

For all the value I place on walking twice, I am honest about its limits. A course walk cannot tell you how your horse will feel after a long float trip from, say, regional New South Wales down to Melbourne, and it cannot tell you how he will cope with the buzz of a busy morning warm-up. It also cannot replace the steady, unglamorous fitness work done at home in the months before the event.

A recent entry reminded me of this last year when I walked a course three times and still produced a tired, scratchy ride because I had skipped a session in the build-up. The walk gave me the plan; the fitness would have given me the petrol to execute it.

That is why I treat the course walk as the final layer of a much longer preparation, not a substitute for any of it. When preparation is solid and the walk is thorough, the day has a way of feeling almost easy.

Adjusting the routine for smaller events

Not every event demands the same intensity of course walking. At a tiny EvA65 trot-up at a local agistment, one lap is plenty, and over-walking can make you overthink questions Archie could easily jump in his sleep. The twice-fast-and-slow approach earns its keep once the fences start feeling like real questions, usually from EvA80 upward.

I scale my effort to the level. For a Training three-day event, I might walk once thoroughly and once briefly. For an Adelaide four-star long format, I walk three times if the schedule allows, plus a dedicated walk of just the cross-country questions my coach has flagged as the make-or-break fences. The principle holds: one lap to absorb the shape, another to make the decisions, and any extras targeted at the gaps.

After eight seasons, this habit is hardwired into how I prepare. Archie knows the routine now, the float is always packed with the right sunscreen and a spare pair of gloves, and the course walks happen like clockwork. It is a quiet, unglamorous part of eventing that only really shows its value after a few seasons of trying to win without it.