Pre-season prep for a 5* event horse w/ Ros Canter & Meg Elphick | in partnership with Agria

“Walter getting ready for Paris, he was out in the field 24 hours a day until he went.”

There’s no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to horse care, and someone who knows that all too well is Olympic Gold Medalist Ros Canter. From forage to fitness work, the care from Ros and her team never falters.

In the latest episode of #CommitmentToCare, presented by Agria, we take a trip to Lincolnshire, alongside @elphick.event.ponies to see what pre-season prep looks like for a 5* event horse and how year-round care sets them up for success!!

#Agria #AgriaEquine #AgriaPetInsurance #ACommitmentOfCare #ALifetimeOfMemories @agria_equine @agriahast @agria_equine_ie @agriadyreforsikring @agriatierversicherungpferde @elphick.event.ponies @ros_canter_eventing

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hello and welcome to the FBI channels I’m Mega alic and in this series in partnership with agria I have the pleasure of going around some top yards and seeing behind the scenes of their day-to-day lives and their commitment of care to their lovely horses now today is one I have been rather excited about because we are visiting an aventer her venting CV is pretty Immaculate she’s won badminton Burly Europeans and not that long ago she’s actually come back from Paris with this chap here with a gold medal so should we head in and see who I’m talking [Music] about good morning hello great to see you you too thank you very much for having us no problem at all very excited so we’re going to be taking a little peek behind the scenes of your day-to-day yard life today yep I hear you’re literally just back from Polo yeah we got back late last night took quite a while to get home so um yeah maybe slightly different day to normal today particularly seeing as it’s kind of the first week of of winter so no no events to prepare for which is um quite nice really so um yeah but so we’re seeing a little bit sort of of a different side of your Eventing life now I guess your offseason yes so how does that sort of differ for the horses some of them go out and go out and have a holiday um when I say go out in the field and have a holiday our horses are very very lucky cuzz they live out in the field all summer anyway so um but they just get a break from being ridden others stay in work have a few things to kind of work on over the winter they might have had you know not quite as much as a full season as the others so um it’s a great time to kind of do a bit more self analysis try and work out what was good and what we could make better for next year and yeah put some maybe new movements into some of the younger horses and yeah yeah enjoy a bit of more relaxed time as well yeah so who we got here who’s this chap so this is Wilbur uh he’s called graffito is his proper name and he um is half brother to Walter to Lord CH graffo so um that’s quite exciting very exciting yeah pretty cool chat very laidback um takes everything in his stride he’s had a really good year started out in the not until May we started him at 100 but he’s done four or five novices very competitively so yeah he’s going to um he will have a bit of a break but is just going to just have a bit more to learn this year um we hope he’ll be quite a competitive 7-year-old so he’s going to put a bit lateral work in and start his half passes and things like that and then oh was a busy winter dling got lots of learning today he says oh no Okie doie so are you I’m guessing about to head off on a ride hence being all tacked up yeah absolutely yeah we’re going to go hacking I’m going to go with Georgie who helps me ride the horses um she’s going to ride a horse that’s uh just coming back from having a bit of a breakthrough and injury so um he’s he’s kind of on his rehab hacking and Wilbur’s going to keep him company Perfect gr okay well we’ll let you guys crack on and uh maybe come and follow you a little bit super [Music] so Ros we’ve just taken a little perch in your lovely massive Arena this is great isn’t it yeah we’re really lucky yes so we uh originally had like a a 20x 40 then we were lucky we got some funding to do a 40x 60 and then one day I thought we had this little Paddock in the middle and I thought no no no no don’t need that let’s join it all together but it’s it’s really for you know for my future as well for the teaching side of it and stuff it allows me to coach and means that we can keep up with some of the Cross Country training all year round as well yeah no this is brilliant so we’ve just seen you hack out on Lovely Wilbur I was interested to learn a little bit more about your sort of Fitness routine obviously with the end of the season now but if we take Walter for example who’s chilling in the field on holiday how do you go about getting him fit when does that all start to sort of say get ready for Bingington in May so he’ll probably stay out on holiday until the start of December um by which point he’ll have been off since Burly so he’ll have had quite a decent break wow yeah um and then he will basically hack all of December um we won’t start him right at the beginning with hours of walking we don’t tend to do that here um but we’ll just build up the hacks from just going out and having we’ve got an Old disused Railway line that’s flat and the ground’s always good we’ll go out and walk and do a little bit of trop around there to start with and then start putting a hill in and then gradually Build It Up um um and then he’ll probably start doing a little bit of flat work in January okay um and then have a jump towards the end of January so we just that’s a long time isn’t it no jumping so from Bly to January he’ll have not prob won’t jump no but just because he doesn’t really need to he knows his job and um yeah we try and save him a bit really and then you know at the closer we get to babon we then start to when we know he’s definitely going to be his aim say for example let’s say we’re definitely going to go to badminton will then start working back so um ideally they need to do kind of 6 to8 weeks of of the Gallup type Fitness work before going to something like that okay but because barington comes so early you know you think of Burly it comes off the back at badmington so they’ve got that Baseline Fitness already um for badmington they don’t have that and equally we can get caught out with the weather at that time of year so I’ll actually try and start my cter work a bit earlier okay for an event like badminton to allow for any little thing going wrong with a horse but also something going wrong with the weather you know it’s not unusual to get snow in February and that would then you know cut make everything two weeks late already try and try and get to the point where they are doing their maximum gallets and for ours we go onto a grass field that we’ve got from a farmer and they go up to I like them to go at least twice doing six times up okay the bit where we go um and I’ll try and Achieve that again a couple of weeks before we go to badmington to give us a bit of a buffer okay you know anything going a little bit wrong um I think more and more tapering is good um so yeah we’ll try and Achieve our two lots of six kind of two to three weeks before that will allow me to go well actually I’d love to get one more in or I’m going to go and do another Gallop but the horse is getting a bit keen and strong so I’m going to go and do schooling and caner at the same time unless just going for a Gallop so if we can get it in early enough we can then pick and choose what we do in the last two weeks to enable us to actually peak in their performance and their their last Gallop is cuz I’ve always been taught 5 days before is when you do a last Gallop is that right or is that do you I’m probably a bit more layback as to as to what we’re doing um and the type of horse as well I think you know Walter is a natural galloper so um and also with with us because we only go on grass it’s very ground dependent as well yeah of course so interestingly between Paris and Burley Walter didn’t Gallop really which was I don’t know how was it six or seven weeks wow so obviously he was very fit up but then the ground was pretty hard and and so we went on the Hills we went to where the gallops are um but we trotted up the Steep bits steady slow cans but I wouldn’t say I ever Unleashed him on the gallops between the two never really had a big blowout with him um but I was confident that with all the work he’s done in previous years how fit he was for Paris Paris would have been a fit anding run for him yeah of course but for him with you know the genetics that he’s got and the ease that he has in his Gallop that that would have been enough for Bly but you might get another horse like Isel lot DHI who is less thed blood um wouldn’t enjoy the Galloping you know quite so much wouldn’t find it so bodily easily that I definitely would have a Gallop closer to the competition because it’s good to get him in that positive mindset but equally with a horse like a lot who would find six times up the gallop he’d start to feel that was hard work um I don’t want him to go into his big competition feeling bit fatigued a bit fatigued and just a bit mentally demoralized so like his last gallet would always be a short one and I’ll always put him next to another horse and Isaac will always beat the the horse the last time up we’ll let we’ll hold the other one back so Isaac wins give him a big Pat say aren’t you fantastic fantastic so he goes into his big competition thinking that he actually really enjoys that side of it oh my gosh that’s so interesting I’ve never thought of like the hores psychology and their ego going no we do quite a lot of that is so clever yeah just making sure that we know each horse’s personality and and I know what it’s like to go for a run and you know to be a bit like Isaac to go you know Isaac Isaac’s body works so well in the dress arge his mechanics mean he can dance and be elastic but that you know that constant galloping is is a is a harder thing for him to really want to do mentally like he loves to jump but hit 8 minutes and he starts to go you know what I wish I could sit on the couch and watch a film right now you know and I know what that feel but also you know if you have if you go for a run and you get the right music on and you have your right friend there motivating you how how much better you feel about it so we try and take that into the horses as well so there any horses that would actually do them a favor to perhaps not win and they come out a bit like having to prove themselves or the majority of them yeah so like you know wal Walter could be like that and um MH S7 who’s just in his first five star up PO like he’s really giddy on the gallops he would just give his all every time up so yeah if he got you know it wouldn’t matter so much to him where he finished cuz I know come out on the cross country and he’s he really enjoys that side of it anyway but so it’s just it’s it’s like with everything with horses they each have their own individual personality and it’s my job as a rider to get inside their heads not not just to be good at riding but to be a bit of a psychologist and to go how can I get the tools to peek at this time and feel like they’re really they really want to win to that is so interesting that’s actually genuinely never crossed my mind I feel like I’m getting such good nuggets of information one last thing can I get a little bit of platting advice if we head into the bar now absolutely yeah I think I’ve been uh I think I’ve been left to it today now so um you’ll have to get it from me I’ll take but we’ll give it a go that’s not bad all right let’s head in so we’re back with lovely Wilbur now and I’ve asked rod for a few platting tips it’s something we’ve done across the series so we’ve had our big dress puffy plants we’ve had our straight show jumping main what do we do for venting so for venting so it varies a little bit and um I can tell you now I’m no expert I’m not normally the one that stood up here I used to be a lot when I didn’t have so many horses and a family like and everything else but I don’t plat so much any often I leave that to the other guys but for one day um we just plat with bands okay um pretty much always end up platting the day before just because we’ll generally have very early starts you know we’ll be getting up at 2 or 3 in the morning um sometimes we plant the night before put the turnout rugs back on and they go back out if we’re leaving at a time where we could we’ve got the time to go down to the field and get them is that fully rolling up or do you plat down then roll up in the morning no we fully roll up pop the new zealands back on mostly when you get them morning really good the hores really good like that if we’re leaving kind of with five or six horses at 2 in the morning they stay in the night before so they’ll get ridden probably kind of late morning then get B plattered stud holes Etc then they’ll stay in and then we’ll just take them from the stables in the morning so we plat down basically with bands don’t plat the full lock um leave that out and then we just put the ears on them for the competition so they don’t have to have their four lot plattered at all and then for a 3 day they’re plattered with thread so Travis and Sarah are a great platters so little bit more time time and effort put in look a bit smarter look better for longer and um then it just depends a little bit on the confirmation of the horse as to how many plats we do so most of them we do quite a lot of small plats so is that meant to make the neck look longer so it’s all for the image for the dressage so we just tend to bunch couldn’t even tell you how many we normally do probably 15 to 18 I would think so enough go that’s a lot and then I think we all have slightly different techniques um often they’ve got still got slightly damp main cuz they’ll have had a bath so then you plat which is quite nice still a little bit damp cuz it’s just easier to get get the plats a little bit tighter so you don’t actually use that much product or anything on so then we don’t really need to use product so when you’re doing lots of little plats do you play by the rules of having the odd number up the ne and then in theory the fall loock would be even or do you not really mind just whatever don’t really mind I don’t mind too many for the judges to count too many for the judges to count I don’t think they really do count and um I try not to be superstitious okay as well like I could be the type of person that would get a bit like oh well this happen so this happened last time so I’ve got to make sure it happens next time and I could I could get a person that gets LED down that trap and I just don’t allow it to happen because otherwise you know there’s so many things that can go right and wrong with horses anyway being superstitious I think is just a step too far for me and my team so I don’t think anyone would handle me if I had any more funny little habits so I try not to be superstitious about stuff yeah and just let people get on with their jobs You Know Travis and Sarah are so good at what they do that I try not to get too involved at the bottom of the flat I try and Tuck the little bit under that I can’t plat yeah okay just so it’s not in the way and then I generally put the bottom bit right up to the top and then Fold It Again into into the neck and then sometimes I find these bits go a bit loose but then I can just pin them in yeah so a folder not a roller I’m a folder yeah do you find quite a lot of them actually enjoy the platting most most of ours we’re really lucky most of our horses are very relaxed yeah I think cuz they live that that outdoor life all the time they are pretty good the odd one is more you know fidgety finds it less easy to stand still than others Wilbur’s very chilled he’s very La by course on the ho so seeing as The Season’s finished that’s it um for the year so we’ll um put all these take these plats out enjoy the fact we don’t have to put any more in for a while and yep Wilbur can go and have a rest in the field again he’s actually yawning on Q bless him hard boy hard life being a model so do you always get turnout all year around then yes we’re really lucky here so this is it’s like our family farm uh mum grew up riding ponies and things but not being particularly competitive but it’s always been the thing that she’s completely passionate about is that horses must lead As Natural a life as possible so um we don’t have a horse walker she’s been adamant we’re never to have one because she didn’t want us to be able to have an excuse not to turn horses out so yeah yeah they go out every day in the winter wow normally about weeks before badminton they then head out fulltime really and then that’s it they’re out at grass until you know we’re hoping we’ll get another two weeks now so what we’re start a November now hopefully mid November then they’ll start coming in but they’ll stay out all day until until they were they run out of food really yeah um so we’re really lucky but it’s quite um it’s quite a managed program the fields are poop picked every day wow um mom’s really on it with stuff like that the grass is fed you know the fields are hared and rolled so um it would seem like it’s an easier life for us because you don’t have to M out every day but actually there’s quite a lot of work involved in making sure the fields stay good enough for the horses to be out as much as they are that’s amazing I can’t believe they live out when they’re off going to like five stars and everything yeah so literally you know get ready for like Walter getting ready for Burley or even Paris he was out 24 hours a day until he went on the Loris on the Lorry to the Olympics and then how how do you cope when you get to the show and they’re suddenly expected to be in a stable uh they seem to cope absolutely fine you know they do come in obviously they do sometimes stand in a bit during the day if they’re waiting their turn to be ridden or um if they’re getting a bit fat or something in the summer and they come in the night before a competition if we’re off very early and we can’t go and get them from the field so and then in the winter obviously they come in at night so they are used to being in stables and really doesn’t seem to to bother them in a negative way and just do the sort of grazing at the shows and yeah absolutely and and I suppose in a way you know because we know that when they get out so we got back from po at half 7 in the dark last night the horsey went straight to in the field so you know actually we know when we’re at an event you know they do have to stand in the Stables but we know that as soon as they get back they’ll be out so at least the rest of the time they’re having that really natural life so important for them isn’t it and just keeping their heads in check but also their bodies actually moving around and yeah I think you know we are I have have been lucky in my career so far with horses not having too many injuries and things like that and you know physio wise the horses often feel quite good I think to the physios so um I think hopefully it’s the fact that they just getting to wander have the heads Down live that kind of natural life and do lots of hacking and things we do all our Galloping on grass we don’t you know we don’t use too many surfaces all the time and hopefully it’s how they’re designed to be is this our spot this is Wilbur field in you go my love enjoy he’s really I thought I was going to a show being plattered and it’s and it’s quite nice as well cuz we just um you know we’re quite thoughtful as well about who goes out with who some of them are in individual paddocks others are paired off we’ve got a paddock with three or four horses in at a time and um so we just think about who might match who who needs what grass and move them about a bit to make sure that you know they’re always where where they ought to be and as happy as we can have them it is a lot of work isn’t it lots of thought goes into keeping you guys as happy as possible yeah exactly lots of thought going into a field but um but yeah it’s it’s quite a managed it’s quite a managed process more managed maybe than it than it appears yeah absolutely right mate go and enjoy your field is that you nearly done for the day or have you got more more horses no I’ve got this guy to ride um so this is uh zenir we call him Alfie at home he’s um retired event horse he’s 20 years old and he did I think he was top six top 10 in six five stars he did M and po who’s a real po specialist uh it’s my first festar horse absolutely adore this horse he’s wonderful wonderful character so he stopped venting when he was 17 he was just starting to to feel his legs a little bit so um I was desperate to have him here in his old age cuz he’s such a great personality and uh my real dream was that one day Ziggy will ride him or at least we’ll hack out together um but at the moment he’s being too naughty he’s too is he sensible or is he not he’s too fresh to go out with the children or the young horses at the moment he’s not well enough behaved so he’s actually going to do a demonstration this year at London International Horse Show with Richard Davidson he’s going to show off his Tempe changes and what event horses are capable of in the dress arge so um although he doesn’t look like it he is now um getting fit again for that so got a bit of grooming and clipping to do um but I’m going to ride him in a minute and uh just yeah start getting him ready for December for his his big kind of Debut at London which I think he’s going to thoroughly enjoy but he’s pretty cool shine again he’s absolutely cool he’s got no front teeth anymore look his tongue always hangs out so that’s quite funny so he eats lots of powdery food and things like that but yeah he’s got heart of gold this horse he’s he’s definitely um glass glassful kind of guy never has a bad day always friendly always getting on with everybody so we love him to bits I love that he’s like you still kept him in work as well yeah of that wants toov to work he loves to work and he’s and he’s great because he’s um he’s a real school master um like the other guys on the yard can ride him if anyone’s had a bad day or lost a bit of confidence out comes Alfie puts a smile back on everyone’s faces he he makes people believe so he’s got he’s got a real job to do in life still and um yeah he’s he’s great like people can learn their flying changes on him but if they don’t ask right he won’t do it so he’s not he’s not such a school master that that’s exactly what you need there isn’t it exactly yeah not push button yeah you still got a lot to give so it’s great oh brilliant well listen Ros thank you so much for having us here we really appreciate you taking the time especially literally just getting back from home no problem you must be exhausted but we’ll let you crack on ride lovely Alfie big big thank you to Ros and agua for sponsoring this series and do make sure you stay up to dat on the fbii channels because there is so much more to come [Music]