A thank you to the person behind every great day

When I pull up after a clear cross-country run, heart still hammering and horse still bouncing beneath me, my first thought isn't always about my own performance. Somewhere in the back of my mind, before I even swing out of the saddle, I'm already looking for the person who drew the lines on that ground. There's a particular kind of satisfaction you get from finishing a technical track at a venue like Boneo Park or Wallaby Hill, and it never quite belongs to me alone. The feeling that I want to walk over and shake a hand is just as real as the relief of seeing the flags still up at the last combination.

Equestrian sport has a way of humbling riders, and eventing is no exception. The cross-country phase especially feels like a conversation between the rider, the horse, the ground conditions, and the brain that imagined the course in the first place. When the conversation goes well, when the distances find you, when the questions feel fair but testing, that is a small miracle of planning and creativity. I don't think enough riders stop to acknowledge that miracle, and that is something I want to talk about today.

Course designers in our sport are a strange mix of artist, engineer, and psychologist. They have to understand horse psychology, rider nerves, terrain, footing, and the way water flows on a particular piece of land in a particular climate. In Australia, where summer heat, sticky red mud, and a stubborn breeze can all be part of the picture, that mix is even more layered. So yes, after a great day, I always thank the course designer, and here is why I think more of us should.

The invisible architect behind every flag

There's a person standing somewhere near the secretary's tent, often half-hidden behind a clipboard or a coffee, who has spent months thinking about the day you just finished riding. They have walked the ground at different times of day, measured distances with a long tape, paced out strides, and re-imagined jumps that weren't quite right. They've consulted with ground staff about arena drainage and worried about the spot where the new log pile might catch a horse's hoof if it lands too deep. You see the result; they lived the process.

In our part of the world, that work also includes wrestling with weather that doesn't always cooperate. A designer preparing for an event at Adelaide Hills or the Sydney International Equestrian Centre has to think about how a warm northerly might dry out the ground by lunchtime, or how a sudden downpour might turn a bank into a skating rink. They're checking forecasts, talking to farriers about studded shoes, and quietly hoping the fly spray budget is generous that week. The course you ride on Saturday is the one they finalised Friday night with their fingers crossed.

Trust built one fence at a time

The first time I really understood what course design could do for a partnership was at a one-day event on a property just out of Berrima. I was on a green horse who could get a bit looky at odd-coloured fillers, and I was honestly nervous about the back third of the track. The designer had placed a simple log, then a brush apex, then a corner, with just enough space between to let my mare process what she was looking at. We came home with no jumping penalties and a mare who felt like she had grown up overnight. I hunted the designer down at the bar that night and probably embarrassed myself with how enthusiastic my thanks were.

That track taught me something I now think about constantly: a great course asks questions without shouting them. It invites the horse and rider to find their own answer, and when they do, the confidence stays with them long after the ribbons have been handed out. It is a quiet kind of teaching that doesn't require a lesson fee. Years later, I still talk about that Berrima track whenever I'm trying to explain to a less experienced friend why a fair cross-country question is worth more than an easy one. Course designers, when they're doing their job well, are quietly shaping riders without us always noticing.

Reading the land like a good rider should

Designing a course is partly about reading terrain, and Australian terrain does not do anything by halves. Sandbelt country on the Mornington Peninsula behaves nothing like the basalt flats around Toowoomba, and neither behaves like the granite-studded hills of the southern highlands. A designer who has built tracks across more than one of these regions carries a kind of muscle memory I find genuinely impressive. They know that a downhill to a corner in heavy red soil needs a different approach than a downhill to a corner on sand because the foot comes into the ground differently.

This is also where the Australian climate comes into play. A course designer in late January has to think about heat policy, watering schedules, and whether a particular combination will be in full sun at three o'clock. There is a real skill in placing water complexes in spots that catch a breeze, and in choosing shade lines for combinations that need them. It's the kind of work that, if you do it well, almost no one notices, and if you do it badly, everyone does. I like being the rider who notices when it's been done well, because that means I'm paying attention to my horse and the ground at the same time.

Where nerves meet thoughtful questions

I get nervous before cross-country, and I'm not embarrassed to admit it. My hands sweat. I count strides even when I know I shouldn't. On a particularly sticky day, I have been known to pull up at a fence and pretend I was checking my girth. The thing is, the best courses I have ridden have actually helped me with that. There's something about riding a thoughtfully built track that gives the nerves a job to do, instead of letting them rattle around in my chest waiting for something to worry about.

I wrote a piece some time ago about how I manage my nerves by counting canter strides, and I think course design belongs in the same conversation. When the questions come in a sensible order, when the distances feel honest, when the lines flow naturally from one to the next, my brain stops fighting me and starts working. It is one of the most underrated gifts a designer can give a nervous rider, and I do not thank them enough for it.

A craft that keeps giving back

The more time I spend in this sport, the more I want to learn from the people who build the tracks I ride on. Some of them keep detailed journals. Some of them are happy to walk a course with you after the prize-giving and explain why a particular question was placed where it was. I have had designers show me drawings, talk me through alternative routes that weren't used, and quietly tell me what they had hoped would happen on a certain line. Every time that happens, I go home a better rider than I arrived.

Reading has shaped my thinking here too, and there are a few books I keep going back to that have shifted how I approach the whole sport. If you're curious, I wrote about three books that changed my approach to equestrian sport in another post, and I think anyone who wants to understand course design better would enjoy the same reads. They give you a window into how people think about training, partnership, and the way questions can be asked in a way that respects the horse.

There is also something to be said for the community side of this. In our corner of the eventing world, the courses are often walked with friends, dissected over a burger from the food van, and argued about with great enthusiasm long after the last horse has come home. "Stoked," "chockers," "fair dinkum," all the Australian vocabulary comes out in those conversations, and somewhere in the middle of it all, someone always says, "I really liked that course." I want that person to be me, every time. I want to be the rider who finishes, walks up to the designer, and lets them know that the day went well because of them, not in spite of them.

So next time you come back from a great day, find the course designer and let them know what worked. Buy them a coffee if the event allows it. Tell them what your horse thought of a particular line. They will remember it, and so will you. Drop your story in the comments below. I always love hearing your experiences, and there is a fair chance a few of you have a course designer to thank right now.