Take a quick peruse around social media and it’s easy to see that Buck Davidson coaches a lot of riders. A lot of upper-level event riders, to be exact.
From Lainey Ashker to Hawley Bennett-Awad, Buck can be seen schooling five-star names in Ocala and beyond.
“I have a lot of top-level students and that’s a function of how hard they work. It has very little to do with me,” Buck explained to the hosts of the Heels Down Happy Hour Podcast. “I am drawn to people who can work hard and handle the truth. If you can do that, you can probably get to the top. And that’s why I have so many upper-level students and not so many lower-level ones. I enjoy talking doctor to doctor.”
Buck says he considers most of his students his friends. “They’ve all been with me a long time.”
Sometimes placing in the top 10 is a win for him or one of his students. Sometimes losing is coming in second.
“My whole thing is trying to teach people to be safe,” Buck described. “The better you are, the safer you are, and the more likely you’ll win.”
As a coach and top-level competitor, Buck says he sees a lot of riders get hung up on riding every jump perfectly. But eventing isn’t about that, he said.
“You’ve got to have options,” Buck explained. “Riding is about trusting your gut and knowing your horse and not worrying about how many strides it is from X to Y.”
“As someone who rides several horses at an event, I’m usually the first to go. People will ask me (as I come out of the ring), ‘Is it five or six strides?’ It depends on how fast you jump the first fence. Speed and balance is going to dictate how you get to the second one. I would be more focused on the balance and rhythm and knowing where your horse is. Don’t be so fixated on the number. Ride the feel.”
To hear more of Buck’s conversation on Heels Down Happy Hour, consider becoming a subscriber on Patreon.