One of the great joys of horse sports is the people we meet in our specialized little worlds. In my experience, these people tend to be a little more interesting than the average person, and something about the love of horses tends to make for unique friendships.

I think to many people in the world of eventing, Ted Cushny, who, with his wife, Cora, founded www.eventingetc.com, was one of these people. With his quiet demeanor and soft sense of humor, he made anyone feel like a friend as he traveled to most of the East Coast’s advanced horse trials and all of the biggest three-day events in the world.

Ted and Cora made a great team, as she wrote the stories and he was the main photographer for their news website. They epitomized a genuine love of the sport, as they went everywhere at their own expense and offered their website for free. I will greatly miss seeing Ted at events this spring, as he passed away just after Christmas (see p. 34).

I can’t remember when I first met Ted and Cora, although one of my most indelible memories comes from the North Georgia CIC many years ago. I’d traveled to Chatsworth with T-shirts and shorts, but an unusual weather pattern sent chilling winds, freezing temperatures and pelting rain that was as cold as ice on cross-country day. As I shivered, trying to take photos while jumping around to stay warm, Ted and Cora offered me some of the warm coats, hats and gloves they had in their car. I don’t know how I would have survived the day without them!

An amazing thing about sports of any kind is how they can unite people. Even though I was less than half his age, I shared a love of horses and eventing with Ted, and we both appreciated the sight of a good horse and rider tackling a tough combination.

We both had a great love of dogs, too, and anyone who knew Ted knew how much he and Misty, a dog of unknown breeding who he adopted from a shelter, absolutely adored each other.

Over the course of more than a decade of taking photos at the same events together, I often enjoyed his companionship beside the water jump or bank and often joined the two for fun dinners. Although Ted held prominent positions in the American Horse Shows Association, worked as a high-powered attorney, and has a grandson who’s made his mark in racing, you’d never hear him talking about himself, nor would he ever make a negative comment. His close friends were some of the “who’s who” of all horse sports, but he
wasn’t a name-dropper.

Someone once told me that the friends we make in horses are all that we will really remember someday. I can’t recall who won at North Georgia that cold weekend in April, just the kindness that the Cushnys extended to me. At the end of the day, it’s these people, along with our most special horses (and dogs!) who make our sports so enjoyable, having someone to share the best and worst days, to help us move through hard times or look forward to even bigger successes. We frequently take these friends for granted, and it often seems that they are gone too soon.

Ted was also generous with his photos. He was constantly giving these to riders, and I will treasure the collection of pictures he and Cora have sent me from events where I’ve been riding as much as I will the time I spent shooting beside him.


Beth Rasin