The 2022 eventing season is full of exciting updates and new additions, one of those being the proposal of a USEA program dedicated to the development of professional grooms for the sport of eventing. Led by USEA President Max Corcoran and top-level eventers Lauren Nicholson and Shannon Lilley, the program was born from the recognition of the challenges in our sport due to a lack of professional grooms available. This program enables these talented young professionals to receive the development and training to be top-class performers and to be acknowledged and rewarded for their accomplishments, as well as to gain access to the resources for expanding their career opportunities.
With each session led by a different speaker, participants had the opportunity to glean wisdom from various industry experts. One such expert was Olympian David O’Connor who facilitated a session over how he incorporates natural horsemanship when teaching proper groundwork practices.
“There are no smart mistakes,” O’Connor said at the start of his presentation. “A lot of the times when people get into trouble with horses is when they do two things: they don’t look and they don’t hear. They could be overwhelmed with so many horses still yet to do at 3:00 p.m., but that horse doesn’t know that. That horse doesn’t know that Kentucky is in six weeks. They don’t know when they walk out of the stall what they are going to do. So just having that understanding and taking the time to understand that and take the time to look and to listen to your horse is huge. They might say something to you and you miss it and then both of you can get hurt. Ray Hunt used to say that 85% of the time the horse is just trying to save itself. Let that sink in. That is all they are trying to do.”
“They don’t speak human,” O’Connor continued. “They don’t speak Spanish, English, German, Japanese, they don’t speak human. So we have to learn their language, it is not their job to understand our language. And we communicate with them by putting pressure on and taking pressure off.”
Some of the topics O’Connor addressed in his seminar included:
Watch O’Connor’s entire demonstration on the USEGA and ERA groom’s page or below:
About the USEA Grooms Program
This program is being designed to create a holistic approach for ensuring current and future eventing grooms, the sport’s unsung heroes, receive the development and training to be top-class performers in the role. The program aims for grooms to be acknowledged and rewarded for their accomplishments, as well as to gain access to the resources for expanding their career opportunities. The program aims to provide education and resources for educating U.S. eventing grooms, with a pipeline for future candidates.
Tomorrow, the first of five regional clinics for the USEA Emerging Athletes U21 (EA21) Program kicks off in the central region of the country in Benton, Louisiana, at Holly Hill Farm. Throughout the summer, the remaining clinics on the East and West Coast will follow. At each clinic, 12 hand-selected riders will participate in a two-day clinic led by USEA Eventing Coaches Program (ECP) coaches. The purpose of the EA21 program is to create a pipeline for potential team riders by identifying and developing young talent, improving horsemanship and riding skills, and training and improving skills and consistency. The intention is to provide young athletes with access to an added level of horsemanship and riding skills to further their training and skill development with greater consistency.
After the first day of competition, Canadian Olympian Colleen Loach and her horse FE Golden Eye lead an international field in the CCI4*-L division of the MARS Bromont CCI.
Stone Gate Farm Horse Trials, located in Hanoverton, Ohio, announced they would cancel their fall horse trials, which were scheduled for Sept. 23-24.
Morgan Rowsell had just wrapped up organizing a successful Essex H.T. in Far Hills, New Jersey, on June 4, but as he turned his attention to his next show two weeks later, he was faced with challenges presented by the effects that wildfires from Canada are now having on equestrian sports in the Northeast. “The very next day, the smoke came in,” he said. “It looks like a warm, humid, hazy day, but it’s not humid, it’s not warm, it’s actually quite cool. There’s no air. There’s very little breeze. There’s a northeast wind coming out of Canada that is bringing all the Novia Scotia and Quebec smoke to us, and it smells like smoke.”