Schooling opportunity for daughters horse

[Eventingmum]

My daughter is 13 and into eventing big style.

She has evented at BE80 and 90 on her previous pony, which she then outgrew.
We bought her first horse for her in April 22 - a 4 year old 15.3 Irish sports horse. When we bought him we knew he was green, but his temperament was amazing and we knew he had masses of potential.

Over the last 5 months they have done all sorts. Flat work lessons, XC schooling, dressage competitions, show jump training and the odd competition, hacking and beach rides. They have seen and done a lot and he is coming on loads, but is still young and green.

I now have the opportunity to send him away to a very good rider for 3 months over the autumn/winter time. This rider is working for one of the top eventers in the country as a groom and wants a winter project, whilst her existing horse is on holiday. We bought our boy from her and know her and her family extremely well. I think she is an amazing rider and nice person too.

He will be ridden regularly, schooled by a more capable rider, jumped, taken out to large show venues and have the use of all the facilities of a 5 star eventer. He won't want to come home no doubt.

However:
At my daughters jumping lesson last night, my daughter mentioned our plans to her trainer. Her trainer said "why are you sending him away. Don't you want to do it all yourself?" and also "What is your daughter going to ride whilst he's away. She needs to keep her skill level up or she will get rusty"

It's made me think I am doing the wrong thing.
Of course it would be great to do it all ourselves, however I have to be honest and admit that flatwork is not my daughters strong point and she hates schooling. What 13 year old really likes dressage?

And to be fair she does tend to lack enthusiasm as soon as it gets cold.

We are lucky that we have two other horses my daughter can ride, however they are cob types so not her usual racing/jumping types, but they can shift when they want to.

Am I daft to send him away?

I would send him away, sounds hugely beneficial for the horse and you’re daughter isn’t going to go from a competent ODE rider to a novice in a few months.

It sounds like a great idea to me - your daughter can still ride and her competition horse will be getting a great education which with the best will
in the world your daughter wouldn’t be capable of right now

Thank you. I was completely flummoxed by her trainer as I really value their opinion.

Well I can see your instructor's point, of course it does sound a great opportunity but is your aim to produce the best possible event horse or for your DD to learn and have a good experience, because obviously if the former him going to a pro to be brought on is the best thing (but I would have thought in that case he ideally needs to go for longer than 3 months so she can actually do some proper XC and eventing on him, through the winter it will likely be just dressage and SJ inside/on a surface although maybe she would hunt him too?) but if the latter, spending 3 months hacking around on your cobs and having a bit of a break, while not a disaster, is not doing a huge amount to develop your DD and bring her on. Whereas the process of schooling a young horse and building a partnership is hugely important - for me bringing on a youngster is when the point of dressage/flatwork actually clicks rather than being a tedious bit that you have to do before the fun stuff so I'd be a bit concerned that someone else will do the crucial building blocks of his schooling for her and whether she'll really understand what the pro has worked on and why. I'm assuming part of the deal is not that the pro actually coaches your DD too and explains her process and workings to her (although this would be brilliant if so!)?

Also what does your DD think about the idea, to me that's crucial and at 13 she's old enough to have her opinion taken into account, if she's up for it then of course go for it although I would be ensuring she understands she needs to keep her fitness up and ideally develop her own skills in her weak areas over the winter too so she's ready to make the most of the work the pro has done. I may be being a bit over harsh but if you/her family are investing a lot of time and money into her being a serious competitor in her chosen sport then she needs to match that with her own commitment, not liking dressage and not wanting to ride in the cold is all very well but is not really going to get her very far if she wants competitive success at a higher level! And obviously you haven't said what her reaction to the idea was but thinking of my own DDs at that age and others I've known, the ones who would have happily waved their horse or pony off for a few months at that age without making a big drama and looked forward to a little winter break are not the ones who really truly wanted to maintain the input and effort needed to be seriously competitive into their late teens and beyond, when it only gets harder in terms of their other commitments and how many other things they need to sacrifice for the horses. That's absolutely fine of course, it's perfectly OK to just enjoy riding as more of a hobby but maybe a think about long term aims with her would influence your future decisions?

Having bought a 4yo who was an angel for nearly a year and then seriously hit the Kevin stage I would take the opportunity of serious schooling by a more experienced rider.