We’re coming into horse sale season, and particularly at a time when sales have been wacky for more than a year, it’s going to be an interesting ride this autumn. If you’re on the hunt for a new horse, here are a few things trainers wish you knew.

1. Often – not always, but often – you get what you pay for. If quality is what you want, you’re going to pay for it one way or another, either in the form of the expense of a trained horse, or the expense of the training help required to guide you into getting a prospect there. And let’s be clear: I’m not saying that getting a young horse is the wrong answer for a rider who wants to learn and go up the levels. Far from it, as I much prefer working with good raw material and helping my students install the training themselves, rather than trying to learn someone else’s work (and, often, undo someone else’s messes!). But just know that, especially if you’ve never done it before, you’re going to need some help molding that prospect into a useful citizen.

2. Horses do not stay trained on their own. If you go the schoolmaster route, there is no amount of money you can spend on the animal itself that will keep the horse sharp, supple and capable in spite of inexpert riding. It’s ok that you’re learning, and that you bumble around a bit while you do. But that bumbling is going to inevitably dull the horse you’ve bought. Staying in a program with a competent trainer can help you both maximize the opportunity to learn from an educated horse, and also protect your investment.

3. Selling a horse is not giving up, failing, or abandoning it. Anyone who gives you grief for selling a horse that isn’t working out for you can go right to hell. There’s a million reasons why a horse isn’t right for you, even when you did your due diligence in purchasing him in the first place. Or maybe you’ve invested in a project that you put your time in and want to move along. No matter what, it’s your business, and everyone else can stick it.

4. No matter how wonderful a new horse is, there will be a point in the “getting to know you” process where it stinks. The honeymoon tends to end at the 3-6 month mark. Try not to panic. It gets better. Listen to your coach. And yes, sometimes things go bad because you and the horse aren’t going to work out. But I’m a professional rider, and I’m a good one, and I usually hit a wall somewhere in that 3-6 month window, too. It happens.

5. Lastly, “maintenance” is not a sign that a horse has a problem. Maintenance is a sign the animal has been well cared for. A lack of maintenance isn’t a sign that the animal is healthy, a lack of maintenance is a sign that the animal’s veterinary needs may not have been met. And being proactive with veterinary needs reduces the likelihood, over time, of injury due to overcompensation, hurting one body part trying to avoid using another body part that hurts.

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1. Riding corners. It’s so easy at home to get just a little lazy about corners, and that’s an expensive mistake. Because then when you start putting tests together, surprise! There are corners in those! And even just in regular schooling, corners are where all the prep lives for your lateral work, for your turns, for your transitions. Corners are where the magic happens, and when they become a habit, they require less conscious thought when the chips are down.

2. Practicing good mounting block etiquette. We’ve all been there, right? Our left foot is in, we start to swing over, and our horse starts to meander off. Do you stop and fix it, or do you just let it slide, just this once? “Just this once” quickly becomes a habit, and it’s not a great one. What if you ever have a sore back, or a bum ankle, and you need to take a minute to mount that your horse isn’t going to give you? What if you lose your balance and your horse is already on his way out from underneath you? Or what if you ever want to sell your horse to someone who requires that their horse stand perfectly still? This is an easy thing to practice and make a good habit, and it also sets your ride off from the right foot, one where your horse patiently awaits further instructions, instead of calling shots on his own.

Want the easiest way to fix this? Keep a treat in your pocket. Horsey doesn’t get said treat unless he’s immobile. It’ll fix it right quick (though sometimes EDDIE I’M LOOKING AT YOU you’ll create a monster who likes to swing his head around to your boot while mounting. But then I just give him the treat from the other side. They’re fortunately not all that hard to outfox.)

3. Letting your aids go to 0. I promise you that you are not taking your leg off enough. And I can similarly promise you that you’re not giving the reins enough. Überstreichen – the German word for the act of putting slack in the reins for a stride or two by straightening the rider’s elbow – is a a beautiful thing, and a test of your horse’s self carriage. Your horse should maintain his own balance and posture for the strides of the release. It also allows the rider to retake less contact than they had before, by resetting the contact to zero.

Ditto taking the leg off. Remove it altogether, from the hip, once in a while. Your horse should maintain the same posture, gait and energy level without your leg as with it, and will allow you to do more from less leg once you put it back on. Work smarter, not harder, my friends. It’ll save you money on bits and spurs, not to mention being, you know, good riding.

4. Cleaning your buckles and stitching. Bridles and girths are the big offenders here, and I know how easy it is to just pop a little tack soap on a sponge and wipe things down. But you need to get into buckles, including undoing them, cleaning, and redoing them. Same story with the stitching on your leatherwork, especially high-sweat things like riding boots and girths. Get in there with your tack soap, and get hair out with a hoof pick or stiff brush. Dirt, sweat and moldy hair can break down your stitching over time, and nothing says fun like breaking a girth while riding. Take the time.

5. Replacing your helmet. Many – though certainly not most! – of us are good about replacing helmets after a fall, even if you don’t see any damage to the hat. But did you know that helmets have a lifespan, even if they haven’t had any trauma? The foam and other materials inside helmets do break down, and so it’s recommended that you replace your helmet every 4-5 years, no matter what, and possibly more often if you, like me, are in your helmet for hours a day.

Here’s a great article from my friends at OneK about the whys and wherefores of helmet replacement. And if you’re reading this going “Uh oh, I’m guilty!” then your timing is impeccable, because Helmet Awareness Day is upon us! There’s usually lots of great sales on OneK helmets that weekend, including my favorite, the Avance CCS, which features their cool color change system, a wide brim for sun protection, and the absolutely-critical MIPS safety functionality, which helps protect your brain from shearing forces better than a traditional helmet.

Like Snippets? Sign up for the Sprieser Sporthorse Elite Club, where you’ll get even more monthly goodies, training tips, and a peek behind the scenes in the development of horses from foal to FEI. Click to learn more!

There’ve been a lot of horsey news stories in the last few weeks, between the Olympics, and various things happening in domestic horse sport management. I don’t have enough thoughts on any one individual phenomenon to write a proper blog about it, so here’s a bunch of little, well, snippets.

On dressage at the Olympics: First all, way to go, Team USA Dressage. I met Sabine when Sanceo was a young horse, and she rode him at the 5- or 6-year-old national championships, I forget which. I remember being staggeringly impressed – something I am usually not at that age of horse – because it was both such a quality test, and so clearly a horse that was going to go to the upper levels, not just be a young hotshot that never learned to close. I remember seeking Sabine out because the judges were not impressed, and I went over to be like dude, WTF, this horse is awesome. Sabine was gracious and classy about it. So Sabine, you rock, and you showed ‘em.

Second, a huge thank you to whoever unearthed the videos of Dalera and Gio as young horses. Gio at 4 would have been interesting to me, but I must confess that I would have said “isn’t that a nice future amateur horse!” watching the video of Dalera at 7. It is so, so inspiring to see that brilliant Grand Prix horses are made, not born, and not necessarily made from $400,000 3 year olds. There’s hope for us all.

On Olympic dressage in the world at large: horse crip walking, my friends. I LOVE this (if you’re aghast at the lack of seriousness about our sport, get a big ol’ grip, friend), and Mr. Dogg, if you’re reading this, I volunteer as tribute to participate in your next video. I have a pretty prancy palomino who would love to channel his inner gangsta.

Also, I loved Steffen’s music, as did the internet, but as usual, I found much of the rest of the freestyle music to be fairly painful. A little more rock concert and a little less Grey Poupon in international horse sport might make the sport a little sexier, y’all.

On other Olympic horse sports: I ran triathlons for a little while. I loved running, and I LOVED swimming. But I was a sucky cyclist, and so I’d usually smoke around the swim, lose a ton of ground on the bike, and then play catch up in the run to finish 2nd or 3rd in my division every time. Someone at some point told me this: you cannot win a triathlon on your swim, but you can certainly lose.

I recognize that I have no business telling any rider at any level how to jump their horse over anything, but maybe, just maybe, it’s time for American event riders to get a little bit more serious about dressage.

On other Olympic horse sports, part 2: wow, pentathlon riding is tremendously bad.

On USEF horse news: They’re trying to make the amateur rule better and fairer. This is fantastic, and much needed. But I think breaking classes down by one’s occupation is a dumb way of breaking classes down, and that breaking them down by rider experience would be way better.

One’s job title doesn’t mean one is a good or bad rider. I know lots of extremely competent amateurs. I know lots of mediocre pros. One of the beautiful things about dressage is that we get a score at the end, and while there’s judges who are tough and judges who are like Christmas and a whole lot of judges in between, at least we can recognize that someone who places fifth on a 72% was probably better than a winner on 57%.

There’s a championship here in the mid-Atlantic that’s been around forever – the CBLMs – that has two divisions for senior riders, the A division for riders without extensive experience above the level they’re showing, and the B division for riders that do. So at First Level, an adult amateur like my mom (who’s shown through I1) would compete her next young horse against professionals like me, and my beginner rider working student who’s in her first year of dressage showing but is (according to the USEF amateur rule) a professional would compete against amateurs in their first year of dressage showing. And at Intermediate I, my mom (see above) would compete against professionals like my assistant trainer, showing I1 for the first time as well, but amateurs like Alice Tarjan, with extensive Grand Prix experience, would compete against professionals like me.

It has to be possible for some sort of similar designation to be applied to riders in other disciplines, and it has to be possible for a relatively foolproof database to come into existence so show management can easily check their riders’ status.

On other USEF horse news, plus the news at large: the Delta Variant is real, and we’re definitely heading for another mask mandate, in some capacity, so gear up. More importantly, get freaking vaccinated already. If you’re eligible for a vaccine, and don’t have a health issue that prevents you from doing so, sign the hell up. Not doing so is cowardly and un-patriotic. Vaccinated octogenarian grandma immigrants are braver and better Americans than you.