The yard, national federations and their competition entry systems, breed and discipline societies, and yard-level and discipline-level social groups. Keep horses at the same yard, which is the social unit and functions like a village, share a lorry to competitions, hold each other's horses at the trot-up, and know each other's animals by name and temperament.

The May and September British three-day events, the July German festival, the summer European championships, and the endurance calendar's long-distance rides which cluster in high summer. The yard, the lorry or the box, the ground as a decisive daily fact, hacking, the trot-up, studs, a clear round, the dressage phase, the passport as a legal document, the farrier, livery, a green horse.

November to February, when the horses are turned out or in light work and the indoor season absorbs a fraction of the activity. The eventing and endurance seasons run on ground conditions, and hard or waterlogged ground cancels competitions at short notice, which makes this calendar less reliable than its dates suggest.