Cob Jockey

When CGP asked me in August what my goals were for Connor over those not-quite-four months, I set extremely squishy and vague ones. I had no idea what to expect, so I said, "a more educated understanding of the contact and simple changes."

Needless to say if you've been reading this blog regularly, she knocked those out of the park. I sent her a horse that didn't understand contact and got back a horse that I could conceivably show Third on by the end of 2021.

I mean just look at that body! Also how good he is with Baby Annie <3

In case anyone wants to do non-local full training like this in the future, I thought I'd share what made this so successful for us, since I have definitely heard my share of horror stories over the years.

I thoroughly knew CGP as a trainer, rider and horsewoman before I sent him. Over the previous 18 months, I saw her ride on good days, on bad days, on Grand Prix horses, on green horses. I saw her ride Mustangs, Haflingers, Lusitanos, and OTTBs as well as imported Warmbloods. I saw her ride with MW, with her coach, and by herself. I saw her and her students' consistently eye-popping scores at shows (one of them was even First Level AA Champion for 2020). I knew she was talented at bringing along all kinds of horses and riders, and I knew the horses in her care were happy.

Including an actual Haflinger. As opposed to my fake Haflinger.

Her program is impeccably organized. They have a public Google Calendar for training rides and lessons, and they do not deviate from it. Every lunch break, every bathroom break, every horse that needs tacked up by a groom is all planned out down to the minute and publicly available on her website. There was never a question how many rides Connor was getting.

CGP is ambitious. I think she sees her students as a reflection of herself, and she wants to be the best instructor just as much as she wants to be the best rider, so she's very invested in Connor and I's success. She rides him as if she personally has skin in my game, and the whole relationship is that much better for it.

I drove over to see him - a LOT. Just to hedge my bets against myself waking up and feeling lazy, I only made up a week's worth of supplements at a time so if nothing else, that would guilt trip me into making the four hour roundtrip drive. And with the exception of when I had to quarantine due to COVID exposure, I did see him every single weekend.

No shame, my truck looked like this a LOT this fall.

I took lessons every chance I got, every weekend she was home. I felt the progress happening and learned how to ride him along the way.

Long lessons, short lessons, weird lessons, exhausting lessons, I had them all.

I got media. About once a week, she'd send me a video of Connor's latest achievement with a ton of !!! and unicorn emojis, or a phone call where I could hear the excitement in her voice about how quickly he learned something new. Not only did I know he was being ridden from the calendar and the changes in his body, she let me see it too.

Soooo many exclamation points when she sent me this flying changes video

She has a huge barn staff. There's an office manager for billing, a barn manager for feeding, turnout and blanketing, multiple barn workers for stall cleaning and water filling, and a head groom who groomed him, tacked him up, handwalked him to warm him up and generally got to know him deeply. With that many different eyes on him, absolutely nothing was missed in his care.

I walked in on a bromance.

"What? You didn't see anything."

All in all, it was a fantastic experience, and I would (and probably will) do it again. I can definitely see dropping him off for a week or a month at a time in the future if I'm traveling or he needs a tune-up. And it's going to very much benefit my relationship with my new full-time trainer going forward that she knows my horse so well.