Courtney Cooper on SportHorseNation.com

Check out MLE Courtney Cooper on SportHorseNation.com as she shares her Top 5 Tips for Selling Horses. Courtney has already sold close to 40 horses this year, and shows no signs of slowing down!

Big Steps Forward, Small Steps Back

Horses are such humbling creatures. My ride for the weekend was Holly Erdely's Maine Moose Tracks. As I said in an earlier post, I started riding Moosetracks regularly when Holly was recovering from surgery this past winter, and continue to help develop this talented big guy as he goes through a bit of the terrible teens. This horse has made huge steps forward in his training over the past few months (with the help of super trainer Kelley Williams), so I had reason to look forward to his first recognized competition this weekend.

Then comes the small step back. Any competitor can tell you that one of the biggest challenges is recreating the brilliance from home in the show environment. For whatever reason, Moosetracks didn't want to play the game yesterday. And let me tell you, when you're 5'2" and your 17.2h draft cross decides he doesn't want to play, there's only so much you can do! Thankfully I avoided taking out a few pony clubbers as I tried to settle my partially rearing and lunging beast. After my somewhat embarrassing dressage test, I came out the ring and continued working until good behavior was re-established.

Stadium was another step forward. Warm up went according to plan and he jumped quite well, although a bit green, with me taking the time to do simple changes to ensure he was balanced to the fences. Cross country started out as planned. A nice easy canter over the first few fences. I knew I needed a little extra encouragement going into the first water and promptly dropped my whip. Argh! Not what I wanted to happen at fence 5! But onto the next challenge. Moosetracks continued to jump well, but I could tell he was getting a little tired. I stayed super strong in my rides to each fence, determined to give him no excuse to do anything but jump the jumps in front of him and then let him cruise at his own speed between fences. Then we get back to the little girl on a big horse syndrome, and Moosetracks quit on me at fence 10, for reasons unknown to me and my friends watching. But he finished the course and cooled out well.

As Holly (aka super owner!) cooled out her spotted pony, I changed into my trusty purple crocs and went fishing for my whip. Some people have lucky socks ... I have my lucky whip. And I've had it since I was a pre-teen, and wasn't so happy at the idea of leaving without it. I think everyone shook their heads as I went off to search. It only took a few minutes, and a few weird looks from jump judges, and VIOLA! My beloved whip lives to see another day!

So onto the next step. More lessons, more schooling shows, more conditioning. See you all at Waredaca!

An MLE client is going to WEG!

MLE client Glenda Player of Playland Farm (Union Bridge, Maryland) was asked by the Irish Village to be a demo rider for the entirety of the World Equestrian Games.

For those of you unfamiliar with Playland Farm, they are long time breeders and in recent years have focused on Irish Sport Horses. They breed their arabian mares to Irish Draught stallions (either It's the Luck of the Irish or PL Diamond Hill). Now I know what you're thinking ... they're breeding what!? But I'm telling you that these are some of the quietest, most amateur friendly horses out there. Plus they can jump!

I've teamed Glenda up with EquiChord to do a series of vlogs in her approach to WEG. Check out this first one which introduces Glenda and the horses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHiWmNVUs3I

Upcoming MLE Clinics

MLE has an exciting 2 months ahead of us! Susan Graham White will be coming back for her monthly dressage clinics (July 16 and August 6) and Stephen Bradley will be coming in August for a jumping clinic (August 20).

Both clinics will be taking place at Oatland Stables in Brookeville, Maryland. I have to give a shout out to Cate Cohen, who is the barn manager at Oatlands. I'm so glad we met earlier this year and have been able to team up for these clinics.

So back to the clinics ...

We've been lucky enough to get Susan Graham White to come up on a monthly basis. For those that don't know Susan, she is an upper level dressage competitor as well as judge. Her current young horse, Huey (pictured above), is cleaning up at shows all over the east coast. Susan is based in Southern Maryland at Wolfhaven Farm. I met Susan years and years ago when she came to teach at Waredaca. What I like most about Susan is that she's willing to work with whatever horse I bring to her. From the school horses I used to snag for lessons, to young Harry right off the track. Her hands on approach really helps riders "get it." I think at some point every SGW student has walked along with her either holding your leg or hands into proper position. One thing I know is that once you ride with Susan, you love her. Our clinics are now filling in less than 12 hours. Last clinic I finally convinced a facebook friend to come out for a lesson. This clinic her barn is bringing 4 horses. Check out Susan's web site here: http://www.sgwdressage.com

This past January a local farm asked me to organize a clinic for their barn. I had recently interviewed Stephen Bradley for an article for EventingUSA and really wanted the chance to ride with him. So the logical solution was to schedule a clinic! Despite frigid temps, the clinic went wonderfully. I actually got to ride in this one, riding Moosetracks both days and Harry in a jumping lesson on the second day. Moosetracks dramatically improved and Stephen gave me some great tools on how to deal with my sometimes ornery mount. Harry is just a spectacular jumper, but I sometimes get in his way. I learned to basically sit back and enjoy the ride. Since that clinic, I've had people ask me again and again to bring Stephen back for another clinic. Originally everyone wanted to do cross-country, but I struggled to find an affordable venue. Fast forward a few months, and Cate offers Oatlands for a stadium clinic. I scheduled the date with Stephen and 6 hours later the clinic was full with a wait list. While I knew the clinic would fill quickly, I was pleasantly surprised with just how quickly it filled. Check out Stephen's web site here: http://www.southerneditionfarm.com

If you're in the area for any of the dates listed above, I highly recommend stopping by to audit. Susan Graham White clinics run from 11am-6:45pm and the Stephen Bradley clinic will run from 3pm-7:30pm. I make it a policy to not charge for auditing, as I want to encourage people to come out and learn. (And hopefully sign up for the next clinic!) Just e-mail me for any details!

Katie Wherley in EventingUSA

Check out MLE client Katie Wherley of Rock Solid Training in the post-Rolex issue of EventingUSA magazine!

http://www.rocksolid-training.com/article-Eventing3_rehab.pdf

Katie is a local upper-level event rider located in Middletown, Maryland. I was introduced to her through a mutual friend who has been taking lessons with Katie for a few years. Like many professionals, Katie has all the talent in the world, but just needs "the horse." She's come so close a few times, but horses are horses. Besides building her lesson and training business, I'm trying to find an owner or two to buy that big time horse for Katie.

The cool thing about Katie is that she takes her time. She likes to find her horses at the local race tracks and let them tell her what they want to do with their lives. Besides producing upper level eventers, Katie has also sold horses into the hunter ring for a fair bit of money. So while Katie would love to find owners that want to keep a horse in training with her, she's happy to work with people wanting to invest in a horse for re-sale.

If I had the money, I'd sponsor a horse for each of my clients. Maybe I'll find that money tree while trail riding this week. :-)

Sometimes I get to ride too!

In between all the craziness involved with running MLE, I do find time to ride. As is the case with most professionals, my own horses get pushed to the bottom of the list. So we'll have to talk about them at a later time.

Now let's meet Maine Moose Tracks! He belongs to friend Holly Erdely, and he's a 17.2h Appaloosa/Belgian/Thoroughbred cross. To be more specific, Moosetracks is 1/8 Appaloosa, 1/4 Belgian and 5/8 Thoroughbred. Yup, you read that right ... someone bred this on purpose too! But in all seriousness, I ride this big guy 1-2 days a week. As Holly puts it, I'm his personal trainer. I push him to do the things he can't do and lay down the law when he tries to rebel.

I've been working with Moosetracks consistently since last November. Some key words for his training program include: obedience, suppleness, go forward, and put your f-ing head down. To say that Moosetracks has been a challenge is an understatement. Thankfully with some consistent work, he seems to have developed a bit of a work ethic, albeit a small one. But hey ... I'll take it!

This March he cracked his right hind coffin bone, but thankfully it was soooooo slight, that we didn't have to coop him up in a stall. Also thankfully I was allowed to hop on once a week for a walk work out on good footing so when we got the go ahead to go back to work, I wasn't dealing with a feral beast.

Fast forward to this past weekend, the Waredaca Starter Horse Trials. Thankfully working there has it's benefits and I was able to sneak him into a BNYR division for a dressage test. Now Moosetracks and I had just had one of our biggest blow outs earlier in the week. Needless to say, I wasn't quite sure what to expect for our dressage debut. I gave myself a solid 40 minutes to warm up, expecting him to misbehave. So imagine my surprise when he just put his head down and got to work. I had this moment of, "well shit, now what?!" but then decided to just keep him supple with short bursts of work. Moosetracks continued to surprise me by staying with me the whole time, even when he got tired. And boy did he get tired! For the first time in a long time, I actually felt a little bad for him. It was blazing hot and here he was actually trying to be good.

So in the ring we went, after about 10 minutes too long of warm up. And out we came with a respectable 37 and a broken arena board. Apparently balancing a 17.2h tired draft-cross is a bit more difficult than anticipated, and as he rolled down the slope at the canter, we almost left the arena. Luckily a sharp right spur kept us in, but left a dressage board knocked over and in pieces. Oops! I'll probably be getting harassed for that for months. Ah well. I tried getting off at the end of my test to fix it but to no avail.

So onto the next adventure. Stay tuned!

Wear a helmet kids!

So something I forgot to mention in my post about Bromont ... KUDOS to Courtney for wearing her helmet in dressage!

Helmets for dressage seem to be the topic du jour. Personally I wear a helmet every time every ride. I like my brain too much. For me, not wearing a helmet was never an option. I grew up riding at Waredaca in their lesson program where helmets are mandatory. By the time I got to the level where some would consider a helmet optional, I was teaching lessons, at which point I was expected to wear a helmet as a good example for my students. Waredaca is home to four-star eventer Gretchen Butts, and I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever seen her without a helmet.

For a brief period I wore a hunt cap for dressage at competitions, mostly because I thought it was a sign of maturity. I was 18, riding a good horse, and kicking butt (at least I thought I was). I even fell off a clients horse in dressage warm up one time when the jackass exploded into a bucking fit culminating in the classic drop his shoulder and spin move. I didn't land on my head though, so I figured I was still good. Then I was hacking out my old reliable I'll-do-anything-with mare (with a helmet on), we were just meandering around at the walk and BOOM! next thing I know I'm being lawn-darted across the turf field. My only guess was that a horse fly landed on her or a bee stung her. I didn't land on my head this time either, but was limping for days after. So from there on out, I figured if I could fall off my lovely mare at the walk, I should probably wear a helmet.

But back to Courtney. I've known Courtney for a few years now, mostly only seeing her at shows where she sported a hunt cap for dressage. Then I saw her at Waredaca a few weeks ago, and she had her Charles Owen GR8 on for dressage. I asked her about it, and she said, "Well I figured that I always wear a helmet at home, so I should probably wear it at shows." Pretty simple logic there!

Allison Springer has made a helmet pledge and even wore a helmet in dressage at Rolex. I remember seeing her trot in and thinking, "You go girl!" Then comes Bromont in Canada, when two riders (Courtney and Sarah Cousins) wore helmets in dressage. As John on EventingNation pointed out, that's one more than Rolex.