Unlimited access >

If you could put your horse in bootcamp with a pro, who would you choose and how would you go about it?

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 :slight_smile:

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.

3 Likes

I did a month boot camp with my coach. My husband deployed, and I was supposed to be away for work, so I popped both horses into her program for a month. I ended up not leaving, so I was able to watch a lot of it.

The coach I had at the time is, in my opinion, one of the biggest sleepers out there for coaching. She has a big clinic rotation, and a very passionate select group of riders, but in a space of a lot of BNR and Trainers, it’s hard to make a splash. The month my horses were there, she did every ride that she didn’t transfer to a lesson to me for me to learn what she was doing.

She is the only person I would ship my horses to, long distance full time. She does all care, all riding and only takes on a boutique group of horses and riders. She is one that feeds, changes blankets, speaks with the farrier, chiro, body worker and vets. She will take your horse to aquatread if you want them to. She is next to trails and will take your horses out if they aren’t batshit.

That being said, I think Tik, Dominic, and a few others would be great options. I know a 5* that I would recommend, because I know his program, and his team are the best of the best. The key for me is not going for name recognition but rather personal recommendations

If you’re still with the same coach as before, I agree with you. She’s super.

Daryl Kinney.

2 Likes

I mean, as much as you can say that when you live 15hrs and in a different country now :rofl:

1 Like

Anything is possible with PIVO! :smiley:

1 Like

Darryl is a wonderful horsewoman. She and I were working students/roommates together back in our WS days. She has always been about the horse first. I’d love to ride with her again but we’re on opposite ends of the country. I used to love hacking the horses with her. Hopefully she will forgive me for sharing this but one of my favorite memories of our hacks was the day a very large spider dropped her a visit from the tree above. It was so big I saw it as it deployed, and I was on the horse behind her!!

She handled it much better than I would have. :laughing:

9 Likes

I was fortunate enough to have my horse in training with a less prominent 4 (now 5)* rider on two different occasions. I have a cheeky Thoroughbred who needed more than I was able to find for him - SWPA doesn’t have a ton of suitable facilities or resources and he requires a certain type of management and was a little much for me to navigate by myself.

I originally reached out to a handful of different trainers to interview. I wasn’t necessarily interested in establishing a record, I wanted a good experience for him. I wanted him to gain confidence.

Kelly was local-ish, in my area. I watched her climb her way up the levels with her gelding. She was always patient, kind, and methodical and had good successes because of her approach. I could relate to her program and ultimately thats why I chose her. If i could chose anyone, it would still be her. She’s fabulous and I’m a big believer in her.

1 Like

PM’ed you!

Sending PM

1 Like

100% Tik and Sinead

1 Like

Totally recommend Caroline McClung (Dowd) but not sure if she is taking training horses right now. she does a lot of lessons and is an amazing instructor. Riders and horses come away from her lessons ands training happy and confident. She is a 5* rider that has ridden Rolex and Badminton.

1 Like

As we ve gotten older we have made more use of pros. I like younger pros as they seem more open to different types of horses. Also i primarily fox hunt.

Our last three OTTBs went to our dressage trainer for boot camp for 2-3 months. She is local so we always had interaction. Last year one of mine was coming off injury. My jump trainer , a young eventer, was in aiken so my horse went to aiken for two months. I went to aiken every few weeks to keep in touch.

The key is that both young trainers were used to bringing along young horses and we had previously worked with them. I think boot camp is a good idea.

2 Likes