Sage Advice from Sally Cousins

Sally posts weekly training tips to her Facebook page - and for this alone everyone should follow her! I have the benefit of working with her directly so a lot of her posts are discussions she has with her students regularly. She's really good at being transparent about her struggles and training challenges which gives her students a realistic view of the sport.

Follow her!! These are some of my favorite insights and training tips:

Sustainable Progress 

Two years ago I bought a very fancy 4 year old. He was an amazing mover but did not yet know how to jump. I did not ride him before I bought him, he had been broken by a very good horseman who had put 30 days into him. When I started riding him he was perfect, quiet , willing and independent. We then made our usual trip south for the winter and he continued, for about 2 weeks, this perfect behavior. He then spent the next year running sideways back to the barn, in some form or another. In that time I taught him to jump and he was powerful and brave. The winter of his 5 year old year was not much better, I did enter him in a beginner novice level event at a very friendly venue. I missed the closing date to scratch and get my money back so I decided to take him to do just the dressage and hoped that if he was naughty he would not disrupt anyone else's test. But even the week before the event I did not think I could get it done. To my surprise he was pretty good. Feeling very brave, I decided to do the show jumping and again it was easy. I hadn't even walked the cross country, it never occurred to me I would get that far. Someone had to run and find a map. He marched right around the course. 

He has not put a foot wrong since, and confidently went from that event to training level in 6 months. This is the fancy youngster I bought 18 months earlier. 

This rate of progress is not sustainable. At that event I had a breakthrough. A breakthrough should not be taken as a rate of progress that can be continued. I have given him no reason to start that behavior again. I have been careful not to over face him or force him to do something he doesn't understand. I would expect to spend much of this year at training level to make sure he stays on my side. Slow, methodical training is what makes progress sustainable. Sometimes, though, it can feel like the improvements are taking forever.  

With my horses I let them tell me when they are ready to do more since all horses progress at different rates. In my experience making set plans with horses rarely works out on schedule.

- Sally Cousins 

Horse Confidence

Our horses confidence is directly related to how confident we feel and vice versa. They are closely related. Depending on the horse, it can take years to build up their confidence and one or two bad experiences to undo it. We need to carefully build our horse's confidence. If the horse is not having a good day , don't introduce something new. Usually going slower in your training will end up being quicker in the end because you will not have to go back and fix problems. The more good experiences your horse has the bigger the "bank" you have to draw on.  

Horses learn at different rates. One horse might be able to quickly learn and seems very brave. With this type of horse we need to be very aware that their confidence may be beyond their education and the horse may not have the depth of training to overcome a bad experience. Some horses learn a bit slower, this doesn't mean they will not learn to be brave but we need to take more time and teach them to trust that they are capable of doing what we are asking of them.  

The age of a horse does not necessarily influence how fast it learns. We need to take each horse as an individual and tailor their training to them. As a guideline I think of doing a level a year. This gives the horse a great base. There are horses that are very talented that moving a bit quicker will work, but at some point the horse will need to stay at a level for an extended period of time to solidify their confidence in their work.  

Many riders say to me, "I don't want to ruin my horse" . I respect riders who say this and think this can be our goal. We will make mistakes, horses are wonderfully forgiving creatures and if our horse trusts us and has a solid base of training they will continue to improve.

- Sally Cousins  

Poor Performance at an Event

All of us at some point during the year have an event where we get eliminated, do poorly or find a hole in our training we didn't know was there. This can be hugely depressing and discouraging but over the years I've developed some ways to mentally handle these disappointments. 

The first thing I ask myself is, how big of a deal is this really? If you or your horse is injured clearly that's a much bigger problem than if the horse was tense in the dressage , had two rails down in the show jumping or stopped at the water. A technical elimination is hugely frustrating but not a big training issue. 

One of the things I do to keep myself from getting too depressed over a bad performance is to have the poor person driving home with me in the rig type into my phone all of the things that I learned at the event (even if its what didn't work). The next thing I do is write down all of the things I can think of to do to improve the performance or prevent the problem from happening again. This might include additional dressage lessons, planning a cross country school, or setting up an appointment with the vet. If it was a TE, I consider the possibility that I was too tired, not focused enough, or if I needed to walk the course an additional time. I refer to the list of solutions in the next week which helps me stay positive.  

It works well for me to come up with a solution pretty quickly rather then dwell on the problem. This is part of the mental strength that is so important to develop as a rider. Lastly I remind myself that I am privileged to have to opportunity to ride at all and that this is still only a sport.

- Sally Cousins  

Cantering the Pole

As our courses have gotten more technical I think it has become more important for riders to become more accurate to the jumps. The thing that I do that hugely helps my timing is to canter poles on the ground. Every day that I ride I have at least two poles in the ring on the ground and every horse I ride I canter over the pole, wether the horse is jumping or doing dressage. Sometimes I practice cantering over the pole on a circle and sometimes I practice it with a straight approach. I adjust the stride using the same aids as I would if I were cantering to a jump. When I canter the pole I make sure that I'm using a canter I feel like I could jump out of. I will sometimes change the canter from working, to medium, back to collected so that I can work on my timing out of all the canters I will need when I get to the event.  

This helps not only improve your eye to the fence but also the degree and timing of aid you would need. It is harder to find a good stride to a rail on the ground than it is to a fence. If you can regularly find good distances to a pole on the ground when you go to a fence it will be that much easier. Having a good eye will not take the place of having a good quality canter but it will certainly increase your chances of having a good jump. The bigger the jumps that you jump the more important your timing becomes.  

I canter the pole approximately five times off each lead on each horse every time I ride. This can be frustrating when you start doing it, your horse very quickly will relax into this work. If your horse gets quick or jumps the pole quietly bring him back to the walk and then try again. 

- Sally Cousins  

If you ever have the opportunity to take a lesson or clinic with Sally, I highly recommend it. She's great with adult amateurs. Her exercises are challenging but you progress in a way that produces great confidence in the horse and rider. Plus, she's just plan fun to be around. She's currently in Aiken if anyone reading this is lucky enough to be there too :)