Choosing an eventing horse

Stormie isn't very hot headed, but the horse i'm using for pony club will be used for eventing. :)

Yeah I don't know a lot but a horse good at dressage is important. I had my first mini event today and I placed first even with a rail down and everyone else going clean because of my dressage score.

I've never evented, but I'm going to guess that you want an overall willing horse, one that wants to listen to you and responds well. 'Hot' would not necessarily mean good at eventing. For the cross-country phase, you need a horse with endurance and bravery. If the horse is jittery and all over the place, you might have a lot of refusals in the xc phase! Yes, it's important that the horse goes forward, but too forward and too crazy could be bad.

Yep, good dressage is what you will win on. As in, really, REALLY good dressage. Last event I did, the lady who won my grade had a dressage score of 48, a rail in the stadium jumping, and time penalties XC, but still won because the girl who came second didn't have as low a dressage score, even though she jumped double clear.

Edit; and too forward is a bad thing, because you CAN be eliminated for dangerous riding, and you get time penalties if you go too fast... it's not just being too slow you have to worry about! My horse is a lazy old slug, but put him on XC and you have to hold him back in the lower grades. He's done Prelim (we have pony club E grade, Intro 1&2, prelim, pre-nov, and then 1*-4***) and you have to be quick and accurate through XC at Prelim so he's used to hauling butt out there.... but E grade's times are fairly slow, I think you have to be going around 300-350m/minute. As opposed to (at 4***) a nearly-6km course in just over 10 minutes!

I'm using the Half Ariabian mare I lease. :)