I did this last year. Spider was a 7 year old OTTB who didn’t know how to make his legs go all in the appropriate places at the appropriate time, and he’s BIG.
I’ve known and been friends with Stephanie Cauffman for a long time – she was one of the first riders HSLC started sponsoring back in 2013. I think she was one of my first testers here on COTH
She’s worked for some really big names in the business, has brought along some really nice horses, and competed at Advanced/4* level. She went out on her own in Ocala in 2019, and runs a great barn, is a very thoughtful trainer, and was willing to take Spider on for me in November of 2021. It is the best horse training decision I’ve ever made. She kept him five months, and being in a correct program with good riding completely changed his muscling. He competed at Starter and made one attempt at BN, but most importantly, her goal was to get him to where I could ride him. His training and the horsemanship and care was phenomenal. I’ve been very impressed.
It wasn’t in anyone’s plan that he would bruise his front feet schooling somewhere with hard ground and that would take five months to heal. So, now I’ve let him sit for six months and we need to start him going again. Her kind and thoughtful training has been the best thing that could have happened to both of us.
If you decide you want to send him somewhere, I’d recommend visiting the barns of the trainers you are interested in first. See what the vibe is, and get an idea of whether the training will work for you and your horse. I’ve seen people send their horses to someone for a month or six weeks, and the training was absolutely fine and the care was also fine. But, it didn’t benefit the rider and horse as a pair much at all. The trainer could ride the horse, but the owner was sort of still where they’d been. So, finding out if you can work longer term with the trainer to help the horse become a good ride for your husband is the most important part.
Good luck with it, and here’s something else to keep in mind == Ocala (and I imagine, Aiken is the same) is crazy this time of year. The barns are full and the trainers are juggling lessons and riding along with shows – there are jumper/dressage and even schooling HTs during the week, and recognized shows on the weekends - so you will want to be able to work with someone that has the time and room in the schedule for him, so that’s worth thinking through too.