We are delighted to host Sally Cousins as an expert guest blogger, as she shares her wealth of knowledge with us in the form of weekly training tips. We hope these nuggets of information can be integrated directly into your program at home and can influence the way you ride and train your horses. Be sure to check out both the Sally Cousins Eventing website and keep up with her on Facebook.
Photo by Kasey Mueller
This has been a frustrating year for me. I have worked hard to develop new and younger horses. Because these horses are new to me or very green, I don’t yet know what equipment works best or how to train and manage them. For many years I rode upper-level horses that I had partnered with for six or seven years.
They weren’t always easy, but I knew exactly what they would do. I knew what equipment worked best, and I had all of the adjustments down to a science. I was reminiscing about how much I missed the “reliable old campaigners” when a friend reminded me how long it took me to turn them into “reliable old campaigners.”
For example one of my favorite horses, Joule, was very hot and had a bad tendency to run out to the right early in his career. I drove him to the other side of Chicago trying to get a qualifying ride, but couldn’t even get over the third fence. It took months to get that sorted out.
He was hot by nature, but there were certain times I could hardly do even light work in my own ring without him rearing and plunging. After many months of this, we finally figured out he couldn’t tolerate the sugar in the grass in the spring and fall. One tiny bite of alfalfa and I could not ride him for two days.
