About

The Rider

I wish I could say that this bio will be exciting, but that would be the furthest thing from the truth. I’m Anna, more frequently known in the equestrian corners of the internet as musingsofanequestrian (and you can still find me there on Tumblr. You know, if you’re so inclined). I’m twenty-six and currently working in corporate finance, after a stint in the financial services industry. I have degrees in accounting and anthropology (linguistic anthropology concentration in college), and my goal is to one day be a starving academic/writer (or, more plainly, I’m seriously considering pursuing a PhD and would love to publish a novel someday).

I’ve been riding since I was eight years old (with varying gaps in lessons and a couple of half-leases over the years) and have spent time riding with a pure dressage trainer, a hunter/jumper trainer, and an eventing trainer. Each of them taught me a lot, but I’m an eventer through and through, so I’m back with the trainer who got me hooked on the sport all those years ago (who has become a 5* event rider in the years since I first took a lesson with her). We board at her barn after almost four years with my prior barn owner (whom I still love very much and only left to pursue goals that weren’t feasible there). There are also regularly some great local clinics with other upper-level riders, and I try to ride in or audit them whenever the chance presents itself.

The Horse

Cooper (aka Spymaster if we’re at a show, aka Swrichardthegreat if you’re the Jockey Club) is a 2016 bay Thoroughbred gelding, whose size is unknown to me other than that he is Quite Large. He came home on April 27, 2019 (LRK3DE XC day, which I am choosing to take as a sign of what’s to come for us). One day he’ll be a grown-up event horse, but for now we’re just rocking around Very Green and Starter until we figure out how all our limbs work. Up until the fall of 2020 he only understood Mrs. Pasture’s and peppermints as treats, at which point he decided that apples, bananas, and pretzels are also acceptable. He makes a career out of being as dirty as possible (only in terms of appearance, though—he’s honest as they come under saddle), is definitely a child in terms of overall maturity levels, and is weirdly talented at pulling off a single bell boot during turnout and leaving it completely intact.

How did I wind up getting Cooper out of Swrichardthegreat? Well, none of the barn names related to his JC name seemed to fit (he was known as Richard at the track, and the only other name I really tossed around was Leo for Richard the Lionheart), and I wanted to name him after a fictional character. I threw around the idea of Meriadoc (Merry for short), which I’d been saying I wanted to name a horse for years, but it didn’t quite fit either. Kyprioth, (aka Trick, for the Trickster god of the Copper Isles), was what I thought I would go with until I met him, since Tortall is my favorite fictional universe, but it also wasn’t right.

I kept throwing around more names from Tortall, but none of them worked. He wasn’t a Jonathan or a Liam or a Thom or a Myles, and for all that I love George Cooper, I didn’t want to name him George. I told my mother that, she suggested that I call him Cooper instead, which seemed perfect given that it’s also something that you would name a Golden Retriever and he thinks that he’s a giant dog, and so that’s what I went with. He’s Spymaster at shows for George’s position of second-in-command spymaster to Jonathan of Conté, King of Tortall, though Whisper Man and The Rogue were others of George’s titles that I entertained as possible show names as well.

The Visitors

Every once in a while, you’ll probably see other horses pop up, because Cooper may be my main squeeze but that doesn’t mean that he’s the only horse I ride. For the most part, any other horses you see will belong to my former barn owner or my trainer—I spent a long time borrowing my old barn owner’s pony Ice (well, he’s probably tall enough to qualify as a horse now) to play in the jumpers or go cross-country schooling, both in the pre-Cooper days and before my giant beastie was enough of a grownup to go have fun with me. Ice is a super fun little pocket rocket and I always enjoy it when I ride him, though it happens much less frequently now than it did before I had a horse of my own. Aside from Ice and Cooper, there’s always my trainer’s horses and those belonging to the other boarders, and several of my friends are also equestrians, so there’s plenty of chances for other horses to put in an appearance on this blog. It’s mostly about Cooper though (hence the URL), so he’ll be the one you see most often.