Stone Ridge Eventing

Stone Ridge is BACK! Lessons with USDF Gold Medalist & Certified Dressage Instructor Claudia Coley weekly on Tuesdays. USEA ICP II, HA Pony Clubber & CCI3*L competitor Sarah Berkowitz available at Stone Ridge for instruction once monthly. XC schooling open by appointment! Missing our Winter Series? Yep, that’s in the works too.

An educational yet brisk day for the Sarah Berkowitz clinic at Stone Ridge. Stay tuned for the next dates! Rider feedback reports Sarah as patient, informative, attentive to detail and communicates well. @417_eventing @bellmountainfarm @useaareaivyr

That is NOT where I left you Oscar! Reason # 85 to use the @smarttieproducts in your barn: Mouthy Mounts that untie themselves.

Sara Berkowitz at the new Stone Ridge on Sunday, October 25th. Message Deb Frye for details.

We’ve helped hundreds of horses find new best friends over the years... But more so, we’ve answered thousands of inquiries. I’ll say it again like I say every ...year, in case someone out there needs to hear this... HOW TO FIND YOUR UNICORN 1. PARAMETERS: Sticking to your parameters is only hurting your search. This is like when you have a friend who says they’ll only date a guy over 6 feet tall. Would you turn down meeting your soul mate because he’s 5’11? I’ve learned from many good Horsemen over the years and the saying is true: God never made a good horse in a bad color. The number of times that people are looking for a precise height or a precise color and I think I have the perfect match for them to fulfill all their dreams, but they won’t budge 1 inch on height in either direction. I can tell you that my current 17 hand horse feels much smaller than my current 15.3h horse. It’s much more about their barrel and their neck set and then the height of their withers. Stop looking for the horse that is 5-7 years old 16.2-17.0h bay or grey gelding. You are only sabotaging your own search here. 2. WRONG QUESTIONS: When people call about horses, I tell them what kind of rider he needs and what the horse wants to do for a living. Why does NO ONE ever ask that?! They ask how fancy his trot is or how his dressage score was last weekend or how many ribbons he has or how tall he is. They don’t ever ask, Will he tolerate my mistakes? Will he make up where I’m lacking? Can I handle this horse? Does he have the same goals that I do? 3. WRONG PRIORITIES: I always teach my students this lesson. My keeper horse as a 4yo was the worst mover in the barn. Choppy trot, canter like a tractor trailer on ice, pads on his feet, and some seriously unimpressive knees. If I pulled him out of the stall for you at a sales appointment at 4 years old, you would tell me to put him away! Then he won 3 events at 5yo. At 6 he’s a dream to ride because we’ve put in serious sweat equity for three years. I’m going to burst your bubble here. Unless you’re trying to literally win the Olympics, you don’t need the best mover in the barn. Find the horse that makes you SMILE, that you want to ride every day, the one you can train. Beyond that, you can teach it to win the dressage if you work hard enough. Heck, the worst mover I’ve ever owned won a dozen upper level events and got our Bronze Medal in dressage, and if you saw him today you’d swear that was the best canter you’ve ever ridden. When you’re shopping, don’t buy for the fancy trot. Find the horse that makes you smile. 4. MAINTENANCE: The number of people who put in search ads, absolutely no maintenance or ask me if he has to wear shoes. So you’re telling me if I can find you your perfect unicorn that will make you happy for the rest of his life and you have to give him hock injections once a year, you wouldn’t do it? Because that’s about what you’re spending on your Starbucks this month. If you find a horse that will take care of you, you need to take care of it. Period. 5. VETTINGS: It’s been said by a million people so I’ll keep it brief. Vettings are a fact finding mission, not an attempt to rule out every horse you meet. No one can predict the future-I’ve had upper level horses that would have failed as 4yos who never missed an event in their lives. I’ve seen vets give two thumbs up to horses who dropped dead a week later from a heart problem. Vets are our greatest resource, but they aren’t fortune tellers. Any good vetting WILL find something. Have your trainer help you understand what is realistic when the vet jargon sounds scary. Here’s hoping that this list helps someone searching somewhere. Because I know over the years in my career, if I had stuck to my parameters and broken my rules, I would not have bought any of my eventual upper level horses. I would have missed out on so many special horses in my life, because I didn’t want a 3yo or I didn’t want him to be 15.3h or his ankles aren’t pretty. When you find a horse that you like to ride and it makes you happy, that’s really all that matters. Photo by Canter Clix

The hay is in and the jumps are out! XC Schooling available by appointment. Text or message. @ Stone Ridge Eventing

It’s time to play Whose ears are those anyway? @ Stone Ridge Eventing

If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking,eventually you will make progress Barack Obama

Morning chores. Paddock 2 Motley Crew ready for breakfast.

Ditch Complex . Starter/BN through Modified for all your schooling needs!

One of the biggest reasons, I do suspect, that so many green riders wind up with green horses that may scare them, or that at any rate prevent them from learnin...g the way to apply correct aids, is because so many riders WILL-NOT-BUY an older horse. Here is Bold Minstrel at 16. In his prime, at the height of his powers, yet how many people do you know who would buy a 16 year old horse? They will say things like, "I want an investment." As if investing is only about money, and not an investment in learning how to ride, or in safety, or in the sense of security while learning that can come from an older, wiser, steadier horse.. So when I hear that cost is a prohibiting factor in finding a suitable horse which knows the deal, and can help a green rider figure out "which buttons to push," I always suspect that those are riders who automatically carry some type of prejudice against "investing" in an older horse. The older, been there, done that horse is a great investment, but not so much in terms of getting a later financial return, so much as in investing in the process of giving he young or green rider the chance to learn correct basics that will last them all their riding years. Most green riders who struggle with equally green horses are not learning correct basics. They are "investing" in the wrong piece of the riding puzzle. http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/bold+minstrel...