Why I book a final lesson with my coach before every three-day event

The week before a three-day event is the strangest week of my season. Archie is fit, the entry is paid, and the float is booked, yet I spend most evenings lying awake running through dressage movements in my head. Three-day eventing in Australia is a small, tight-knit world, and most weekends in spring I am either at Melbourne, Wallaby Hill, or one of the Adelaide grounds, running into the same coaches, sponsors, and weekend warriors I have known for years.

What I have learned in a decade of campaigning my warmblood through the levels is that preparation is rarely about the horse in the final stretch. Archie is usually bouncing off the float by Wednesday, glossy and full of himself. The week is really about me: my hands, my brain, my breathing, and whether I am still on speaking terms with the course I am about to ride. That is why I ring my coach on Sunday night and book the final ride for Thursday or Friday.

The session itself is nothing dramatic. We trot up to the venue, warm up on the arena surface, run through the movements I am likely to be tested on, and pick a handful of cross-country questions to jump. The value is not in the schooling. It is in the conversation that happens afterwards, and the small adjustments we quietly make that shape the rest of the weekend.

The final lesson calms my nerves

There is a particular flavour of nerves that hits around five days out. I have had the horses for the trip boxed, the rugs washed, the braids practised on the dog. Everything physical is in place, and yet the entry list still feels enormous. Booking a session with my coach transforms that loose anxiety into something with a shape.

When I know that I will see her on Friday, the week rearranges itself around that meeting. Suddenly I am doing my homework in a focused way: riding Archie's canter transitions with intention, practising the half-halts I know I will forget in the dressage arena, and thinking through the lines I plan to ride cross-country. The lesson gives me a deadline for my preparation, which is something I personally need to function at my best.

Australian competition grounds are busy places in the lead-up to a major three-day event. At Werribee Park, for example, you see coaches walking the course from dawn, riders checking the dressage arenas between warm-ups, and a constant stream of horse floats pulling in from all over Victoria and southern New South Wales. Knowing that I have already had a final, calm conversation with my coach at home means I can arrive at the venue mentally quieter. I am not there to second-guess myself. I am there to execute.

Checking Archie's way of going

I am a firm believer that my coach sees things in my riding that I cannot feel. A week out from a three-day event, that outside eye is worth its weight in gold. Archie moves very differently between eventing seasons, and even between classes within a season, so the final lesson is genuinely a check-up rather than a fix-it session.

We spend a good twenty minutes on the flat. My coach watches how Archie tracks up on each rein, whether he is hinging correctly through his ribcage in canter, and whether the tempo I think I am riding is actually what is coming through the reins. By this stage of the preparation he is fit and forward, which can be a handful, but it also means that any sticky spot in his musculature or any resistance in a particular movement is clear rather than masked.

Last spring, ahead of the Melbourne International Three Day Event, I noticed Archie was rushing the left canter. My coach picked it up in the first three minutes of the lesson. We reset his inside hindleg engagement with a simple shoulder-fore change, and by the end of the ride he was cantering in self-carriage on the same rein. Without that lesson I would have gone into the dressage with a misbehaving engine, and in this discipline a poor dressage score can haunt you for the rest of the weekend.

Rehearsing the cross-country questions

Three-day eventing in Australia has its own flavour of cross-country, and a final lesson is where I rehearse the questions I am most likely to meet. Whether I am heading to a recognised three-day at Werribee, a CNC at Wallaby Hill in the Southern Highlands, or one of the Adelaide events with its rolling turf, the questions tend to repeat themselves with local variations.

My coach builds a short course at home that mirrors the demands of the venue. If we know we are facing a sunken road, she pops me over a smaller version in the school. If we are expecting a narrow brush corner or a tricky combination off an angled brush fence, we set it up so I can ride the line three or four times in one session. The week before an event is too late to change my position fundamentally, but it is exactly the right time to reinforce the lines and balance I will need on course.

There is also the practical benefit of arriving at the venue already knowing how I want to ride certain combinations. I have watched plenty of competitors struggle on cross-country morning because they cannot quite remember what their coach told them in a hurried ten-minute walk a fortnight earlier. A focused lesson in the week leading in is fresher, more specific, and far more useful.

Keeping the rider strong and steady

Eventing is one of those sports where everyone talks about the horse's fitness and almost forgets that the rider is also an athlete. A week out from a major three-day event I am still riding two horses a day, mucking out, walking courses, and basically living at the yards. By the Friday lesson my body is tired in a way that can leak into my position if I am not careful.

I have started taking my own conditioning more seriously over the past few seasons. A fellow rider at one of the Wallaby Hill events pointed me towards a simple resource on rider fitness basics, and I have built some of its ideas into my weekly routine: short core sessions, hip mobility, and a focus on breathing under pressure. The Friday lesson is the moment I notice whether that work has paid off. If I am holding my own with my coach's demands in the flatwork and on the cross-country line, my body is ready.

It is not just about looking the part in the dressage arena. Cross-country is a full-body workout, and I have seen plenty of competitors pulled up on course because they simply ran out of rider. The week-lesson is my chance to feel whether my reactions are sharp, my lower leg is secure, and my stamina will carry me through a four-minute cross-country run before I have to jump a clear show jumping round on the Sunday afternoon.

Settling into travel mode

Australia is a vast country, and eventing means long trips with horses. Whether I am heading up the Hume Highway from Melbourne to Sydney, considering the long haul west across the Nullarbor to Perth, or making the shorter trip down to Boneo Park on the Mornington Peninsula, the floating and the early starts can drain energy long before I have swung a leg over Archie.

Booking a final lesson helps me psychologically shift into travel mode. Once I have ticked that box on Thursday or Friday, my weekend brain switches on. I start packing the float methodically, checking the truck's tyre pressures, and laying out every piece of gear in the tack room. The lesson acts as a clear signal that the training phase is over and the performance phase is beginning.

It also gives my coach one last chance to flag anything I might be missing. A few weeks ago, ahead of a regional event in New South Wales, she noticed Archie was leaning on my left rein in transitions and suggested I pack a slightly thicker bit option just in case we needed a switch on the road. That is the kind of detail I would not have remembered in the blur of packing the night before, and it probably saved me a few penalty points in the dressage on the Saturday.

So that is why, season after season, I always book that penultimate ride. It is not a superstitious ritual, and it is not an extra cost I resent. It is my last chance to check the engine, my best chance to settle my brain, and a quiet conversation with the person who knows my riding well enough to keep me honest. When I load Archie on the float on Friday evening, I am not wondering if I am ready. I know.