What is the Speed trial in Working Equitation?

The Speed trial is the third trial: a course of obstacles ridden against the clock. Penalties are added to the recorded time and one available bonus can reduce it.

No style is judged. The trial's object is to show the horse's willingness to work against the clock, and the rider's coordination and anticipation, with no evaluation of style or movement at all.

I · What Changes from Ease of Handling¶

The trial uses some or all of the obstacles from the Ease of Handling course, though not necessarily in the same order, and an international Speed course carries a minimum of fifteen obstacles. The same obstacle may appear twice, provided the repetition is ridden in the opposite direction.

The riding changes obstacle by obstacle. The bridge that was crossed at a careful walk can now be taken at a canter, in any pace the rider chooses. The gate is usually replaced by a rope, unhooked and re-secured on the move. The pen, circled in both directions the day before, is ridden once, in whichever direction produces the cleaner line. The earthenware jug is not performed at all under the international rules.

The judge no longer gives a quality mark for each obstacle. Faults affect the result only where the Speed rules assign a time penalty or disqualification.

Accuracy can still improve the time. A clean line can preserve momentum, and a balanced turn can shorten the distance travelled without adding a penalty.

II · How the Round Is Timed¶

The trial is timed electronically, with photo-electric cells and a display screen visible to the President of the Jury, the riders and the public.

The clock starts as the rider crosses the starting line, and the starting line is always separate from the first obstacle. The result is announced after each competitor has finished.

The entry order is the reverse of the individual general classification, so the leader rides last.

III · The International Penalty Table¶

A general penalty applies across the whole round. Stroking the horse or touching it on the neck in front of the reins costs five seconds, up to a maximum of two. A third time disqualifies.

IV · The Portuguese Penalty Table¶

Two differences between the international and Portuguese tables are particularly clear.

The gate. In Portugal, failing to close the gate costs twenty seconds. Internationally, dropping the gate and failing to replace it costs thirty seconds, while knocking over an upright costs ten.

The slalom pole. Five seconds in Portugal, three seconds internationally.

V · The One Bonus¶

The Speed table contains one time bonus.

A ring speared on the tip of the pole and returned to the drum with the pole earns a five-second bonus. Both rulebooks agree on the figure, and both attach the same condition: the ring has to end up in the drum, together with the pole.

The rider has to carry the tip of the pole through the ring at canter and then return the pole and ring to the drum for the bonus to count.

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VI · Faults That End the Trial¶

Some faults end the trial rather than costing seconds.

A horse that jumps the bridge instead of crossing it. A horse that steps out through the side of the pen. A pole dropped and not retrieved. A bell not rung. A line taken wrongly and left uncorrected. A fall.

VII · Riding the Course at Speed¶

As the pace increases, the horse still has to remain balanced, responsive and on the intended line. Losing that organisation can lengthen the route, disturb the approach to the next obstacle or produce a penalty.

The course walk lets the rider plan where to turn, where to shorten the line, which pace to use where the rules allow a choice, and which direction to take through an obstacle such as the pen.

At the senior international standard, the Speed trial is ridden with the reins carried in one hand.

Read next Ease of Handling, where the same course is judged for quality

VIII · The Working Day Inside the Penalty Table¶

The Speed penalty table can be read as a list of seconds added and removed. It can also be read as a record of the work the trial came from.

A clean line preserves momentum. A balanced turn can shorten the distance travelled. Those decisions help the time because horse and rider can keep moving through the course without having to rebuild the work after every obstacle.

For College Members, the penalties add another piece of that picture.

A gate left unsecured once risked losing stock. Dropping the pole meant losing the rider's working tool. Spearing the ring at canter represented precision with that tool while the horse remained in motion. The modern Speed table still gives each of those actions a consequence.

The penalties are the working day, priced.

That makes the table useful as a piece of the discipline's history as well as a competition rule. It shows which failures mattered in the work and which piece of horsemanship was valuable enough to earn the trial's only time reduction.

Branch Three can take Members further into the decisions around that table: where a line saves time, where the horse's balance sets the limit, and how strategy changes when every choice now appears on the clock.

The free course tells the rider what each penalty costs. The Member study begins to read why those particular actions still carry a price.