At approximately 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 30, the 2017 Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event (RK3DE) will end with the awards ceremony. Competitors from nine countries will have danced in front of three international dressage judges for about five minutes each, galloped at an average of 570 meters per minute for roughly 4 miles while negotiating a minimum of 40 jumping efforts and clearing a show-jumping round with a maximum height of 1.30 meters.

Horses competing at the CCI4* level (the highest international level of eventing) are supremely fit. And while the actual competition lasts barely more than 20 minutes per horse and rider combination over three days, getting a horse fit enough for this competition takes many hours over several years.

That’s been the experience of first-time RK3DE competitor Jenny Caras, of Marietta, Georgia, who’s brought her horse Fernhill Fortitude (aka “Forty”) through the levels over the past six years. Those years have served as a base on which to build in preparation for RK3DE.

Rest and Reconditioning

After completing the Fair Hill CCI3* in October and taking November off, Caras and Forty started conditioning for RK3DE in December with slow canters of a mile in 3.5 minutes, repeated twice on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This increased gradually to three days a week and five times over the mile with 30 second rest breaks between. Then, she added sprint work into one of these days, and then a second day each week