Page 24 - 2304

22 SIDELINES APRIL 2011 FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE E V E N T I N G

Sally Cousins and Tsunami III placed 9th in Open Intermediate I at Pine Top Winter II Horse Trials in Thomson, GA in February, and 12th with Westerly in the same division. Sally made it three for three by harvesting another 9th with Cavendish in Intermediate Horse

Photo by Elisabeth Harpham

A Few Minutes With Sarah Cousins

By Lauren R. Giannini

Sally (neé Hoey) Cousins has earned three consecutive leading lady rider titles (2008, 2009, 2010) with fnishes in the top 10 overall on the US Eventing Association’s leaderboard throughout most of this decade. She harks back to a great childhood spent on ponies with her two sisters and brother: they rode bareback, hunted with Pickering, and participated in the Pickering Hunt Pony Club in Pennsylvania. She remembers going out with Mrs. Streeter’s bassets and still has a basset that came from that pack.

Sally got hooked on eventing in Pony Club and moved up through the levels: at 20 she spent two years in England, buying a horse called Strike A Light in order to prepare for and compete in the Badminton Horse Trials where she “got around and learned a lot but didn’t win anything.”

After her return to the US in 1986, she worked at Merrill Lynch as a stockbroker simultaneous to pursuing her three-day ambitions. Five years later, Sally rode Castle Clay to victory at the Essex 3-Day Event and, on a competition-free weekend in July, married Nat Cousins who enjoys competing at the lower levels. After 16 years with Merrill Lynch, Sally quit her day job to devote herself full time as a professional. In 2005, the Cousins bought a farm in Aiken so that Sally can train, teach and compete year-round when winter arrives in Pennsylvania.

Sidelines: Of your horses, who seems the best candidate to go four-star?

SC: I’d like to ride Tsunami at Rolex this spring. She’s pretty hot, but she can and will jump anything. She’s very fast and a careful jumper. Dressage can be a challenge for her. She’s a full Thoroughbred off the track. The Robber Baron (OTTB) injured his hock and he’s doing well. We’re going back to Bromont if all goes well.

Sidelines: How do you feel about the changes in the sport, going from the classic long format to the short format without roads and tracks and steeplechase?

SC: Change is inevitable and I think that a lot of the changes are a real effort to make the sport safer and better for the people and the horses.

I try not to be a complainer – some days I can complain with the best of them, but I think a lot of the people out there have really given the changes a lot of thought and I think we’ve got to trust them.

Sidelines: You always put your horses frst: where did you get this and why does it continue to work for you so that you still have that dream?

SC: I really respect the horses I ride and it’s important to me to do the right thing by them. I expect them to work for a living, but it’s no good trying to press a horse if it’s not really ready to go. One of my favorite sayings that I heard last year is: if you didn’t bring it with you, you will not fnd it here.

Sidelines: What’soneofyourmajorpeevesinthehorseworld?

SC: People who complain about their horses – that drives me crazy, absolutely crazy. Horses by nature are very generous creatures. You really can’t make them do anything, so when somebody starts complaining about

their horse, I fnd that upsetting.

Sidelines: Are the 2012 Olympics pie-in-the-sky? How do you deal with the extreme ups and downs of life with horses?

SC: If I have a horse that seems to be on track, I’ll certainly give the Olympics my best shot, but I don’t want to run my whole life around that. I see too many people do that. I really love the training and I love the competing aspect of it and I want to be successful, but I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’d like to keep doing it a lot longer. I think you have to have a good perspective on where you are with a certain horse and where you are in your career. You have to keep a good sense of yourself – this is a pretty small sport and it’s relatively obscure. We’re not exactly changing the course of history. People in the horse world are privileged anyway, and it’s important to remember that and try to keep it real. I work at being level-headed and down to earth.

Sidelines: What were some of the lessons you harvested from your time in England? How has that affected your training routines?

SC: I think it gave me a picture of what the sport is. I just was amazed at the way they seemed to really enjoy what they are doing. They really rode their horses very forward, and the horses seemed to enjoy it. Even at the big events, the horses seemed to be having a good time.

I love this sport. I would event every day if I could get away with it. Even all these years later it’s still thrilling to me to do it and I really look forward to it.