Thursday Video from Ecovet: Buck Davidson Colorado Clinic Report

Buck Davidson isn’t just an asset to American eventing as a rider — he’s also a gifted instructor who makes it a priority to contribute to the continuing education of eventers around the country.

On February 23-24, Buck taught a clinic at Rabbit Mountain Equestrian in Longmont, Colorado, and Ryleigh Leavitt kindly shared this well narrated video from her jumping session. Ryleigh, a 20-year-old student at Colorado State University, rode MoonLight Crush (“Cruz”), a coming 12-year-old Dutch Warmblood/Oldenburg gelding she has produced through the CIC2* level.

Ryleigh explains, “He got injured in July last year and I have been treating him and rehabbing him since then. I was able to get one light jump school in before the clinic, so Cruz and I were both a bit rusty, but the clinic was a huge help to get our butts in gear for the season!

“The biggest take away I got from the clinic was that I needed to work on getting Cruz more in front of my leg and pushing him forward in order to get to a good distance instead of picking to a short distance from a bad canter. He also really emphasized that if I want to move up to Advanced this season that Cruz needs to be much more responsive to my aids, and I need to be working on getting him more responsive each ride!”

Ryleigh and Cruz look like they’ve got a great thing going and, with Buck’s valuable feedback, they’ll be well on their way to a successful move-up. Thanks, Ryleigh, for sharing your clinic experience with us!

Did you know? Some animals (and people) are more attractive to insects than others. In our equine friends, coat color, level of activity, carbon dioxide output and odors secreted by the horse all play a role. Find out how you can make the flies get lost at eco-vet.com.