Road Manager Extraordinaire: Missy Cohen Keeps Beacon Hill Running Smoothly

When talking to Marissa “Missy” Cohen, the word ‘organize’ is used an inordinate amount. As is “making sure,” and “working on.” As the road manager for Beacon Hill Stables in Colts Neck, NJ, Cohen spends most of her time making sure pretty much everything in the barn is running smoothly.

Given her organization and hyper-attention to every single detail, it usually is.

Working for head trainer and well-known equitation maven Stacia Madden, Cohen is routinely responsible for 20-30 horses on the road at any given time, and up to 25 more at home. Cohen’s days are filled with keeping every horse’s schedule maintained and accurate with everything from show times to farrier appointments to feeding details. 

“When we are on the road, I make sure all of the horses get the proper feed, medication, as well as make sure the grooms have everything they need to prepare the horses,” she says. “I’m packing for the horse shows, unpacking after the horse shows, and at home I do a little bit of riding. I’m with the farrier and veterinarian a lot. I keep on top of the horses’ daily schedule at home so that they’re ready to go to the shows. At shows, I make sure everything runs smoothly and on time, and that we have everything we need.”

Perfect Preparation Makes Perfect Success
This preparation and attention to detail is seen in Beacon Hill’s success in the show ring, a lengthy and victorious record that speaks for itself. 

At just 24 years old, Cohen is forging her own path as a young professional. Growing up in West Chester, Pennsylvania, she rode at her mother Gaye Cohen’s Low Key Farm. Cohen said, “I grew up riding the homebred ponies and anything I could get my hands on- green horses, young horses, horses with training issues.”

Low Key Farm did the local A shows and Cohen was responsible for all of the care and grooming of her animals. Cohen is still passionate about young riders taking responsibility for their own horsemanship and serves on the USHJA Youth Committee, which runs the Horsemanship Quiz Challenge. 

 Cohen gives a lameness seminar at the USHJA Horsemanship Quiz Challenge Finals in November at University of Findlay. As a member of the USHJA Youth Committee, Cohen helps run the HQC Finals each year, which are held in conjunction with the Emerging Athletes Program. 

Cohen’s show ring time took her up from short stirrup to the Children’s Ponies, showing at Zone II Hunter Finals several times. From there, Cohen was able to bring up the young pony Bedazzled, who enjoyed much success in the Large Pony Hunter division. Cohen and Bedazzled qualified for and showed at the Devon Horse Show in 2006. “He was 3rd in the Model there which was a big deal for us because he was a homebred and we did everything ourselves,” She remembers.

Cohen moved into showing in the Children’s Horses, but never had a mount scopey enough for the 3’6’’ divisions, so she remained at 3’ until college. Attending Centenary College (Hackettstown, NJ), Cohen rode at IHSA Nationals all four years and was Team Captain her Junior and Senior Years. 

At Centenary, she majored in Business Management and minored in Business, as well as a concentration in Equine Teaching and Training and Equine Business Management. Centenary won Nationals for the first time in 30 years in 2009, with Cohen winning the Intermediate Over Fences class. During the summers, Cohen worked at her mother’s farm or groomed on the road for various riders, including Michelle Spadone at Spruce Meadows in 2010. 

After another win at Nationals in 2010, Cohen moved to the Open Division, winning the Cacchione Cup in 2011 in Lexington, Kentucky. Winning the Cacchione Cup also meant winning a grant to go to Europe, and Cohen went to train with Gerhard Etter in Switzerland for three months in 2011. Cohen said, “It was a pretty large sales barn, with a lot of young horses and a lot of horses we didn’t know. Luckily, the IHSA set me up well to get on horses I didn’t know because sometimes we showed horses to clients that we had never sat on and they would expect us to jump some pretty large fences. I had a great time and it was a lot of hard work- a lot of stall mucking and putting horses on the walker- and I learned so much.”

 Cohen after winning the IHSA Cacchione Cup in 2011. 

Returning to Pennsylvania, Cohen worked with Joanne Copeland of JBC Enterprises and went to Wellington with her for the 2012 season. While in Wellington, Cohen also worked part time for Amanda Lyerly, meaning that she worked seven days a weeks for the four months she was in Florida. Unphased, Cohen gained a lot of experience and said, “They were both very supportive professionals. I mainly did grooming, a small amount of riding, and helped with managing around the barn. I took a lot of horses back and forth from the ring- as all of the basics grooms do in Florida.”

The Chance That Paid Off
After coming home from Florida and working for her mother and other barns for shows here and there, Cohen got a call from Stacia Madden to see if she was available to groom for Lake Placid in 2012. Although she was scheduled to ride, show, and teach that weekend for her mother at another show, she took the chance to groom at the highest level of the sport. 

“It paid off,” Cohen says. “When I was there, she saw all my skills as not just a groom; I helped organize some horses with the veterinarian and help get some of the extra horses to the ring. She asked if I wanted to stay on as their road manager.”

Originally, Cohen met Beacon Hill only at horse shows- about two weeks working on and two weeks working off. During the two weeks off, she would go back to Pennsylvania to help at Low Key Farm with some of her clients and horses.

After 2012, Cohen went with Beacon Hill to Florida and stayed for three months working as a full-time employee. Since then, she has moved to New Jersey to work for Beacon Hill full-time at the shows and at home. After Florida, the Beacon Hill show schedule is roughly two weeks on and two weeks off until the equitation finals wrap up in November. After the Kentucky National, they don’t show for about a month and a half, leaving for Florida after Christmas, which gives the horses a nice break and time to bring some young ones along. 

Cohen riding at Beacon Hill in Colts Neck

Scheduling is a monumental task to keep all of the horses from doing too many classes, showing too much, but also qualifying for all of their classes and peaking during finals time.

“We have a lot of equitation horses, a few hunters, and jumpers," Cohen explains. "For our Equitation horses, it revolves around their yearly schedule. Hunters should peak around Indoors with qualifying. With Equitation horses, we keep their schedule so that they’re ready and peaking at the Finals and not used up by then. Afterwards, they get enough of a break and then have to get qualified for the following year. Our schedule for them is light after the finals, and then depending of the horse, we try to keep them showing enough to keep them on top of their game, but not too much. It is easy for Equitation horses to show too much because there are so many different classes. A lot of our clients will not try to go for all of the finals if they only have one horse or they will have multiple horses to try to work out having to many classes to have to qualify for and have extra classes for the final.”

A Critical Balance
This balance of keeping horses qualified, but not overshowing or overstressing is a constant priority. Cohen spends a lot of time making sure that the horses are prepared for their job and have the health and fitness to meet their rider’s goals. Like with any top-level athlete, Cohen says, “we want the horses to be prepared for a class, but we are very careful about their workload, trying not to overdo any amount of strenuous activities.

“I know that it is a misconception of the A circuit and equitation horses in particular that we lunge our horses to death. Instead, we rely on good riding and good training to accomplish that as opposed to overworking the horses,” she adds. 

Cohen’s eye for detail is always on high alert. She is forever making sure each horse leaves the barn with the correct tack, which for the equitation classes, depends on whether they are showing in a hunter-style or jumper-style class, or if back-to-back, that both the standing martingale and running martingale and rein stoppers come to the ring. 

As for her future, Cohen is not sure what is in store for her. Learning all that she can, she sees herself at Beacon Hill for several years to come while she further establishes herself in the industry. As she spends more time with vets, she has gotten increasingly interested in the veterinary care of sporthorses, which is one possibility she might explore in the future. In the meantime, she is enjoying being immesed year-round in the best competition that this sport has to offer and the wealth of knowledge that surrounds it. 

Beacon Hill Stables, Colts Neck NJ. Photo ©Parker/Russell The Book LLC