It wasn’t a clinic, it was a friend of hers that’s a dressage rider that came once a week to ride the horse. I try not to micro manage my clients (despite what people here want to conjure up about me), and so I wasn’t watching when the horse was ridden the first couple of times. After there was a pattern of soreness after this rider rode the horse for a few weeks (after accounting for anything else that could be causing the soreness), I told the client that her friend was no longer welcome to ride the horse. Mysteriously 
the soreness stopped recurring.
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Please quote where I said this was unfair to me
Are you me? Cause I’m right there with ya. I can sit and watch the freaking crossrail ring go for 8 hours straight 
. I have evented and still take horses XC and take dressage lessons, but my heart is in the hunter ring. The jumpers are a nice compromise and I kind of let the horse tell me where they’d like to be.
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So the owner didn’t even take the horse off the property, wasn’t attending a show or clinic, and wasn’t even the one riding the horse?
Doesn’t sound remotely comparable to what’s being discussed here.
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[quote=“Demerara_Stables, post:9, topic:795423”]
I don’t think it’s fair for a client to go off and do whatever they want but then come back to the home trainer who then has to fix whatever said clinician screwed up on the horsestrong text****
[/quote]
Actually you did say that. Again I agree that if you have a legitimate reason for a client like the OP not to go, the clinician is abusive or unsafe you are within your right to say something. Outside of that an independent rider like the OP should be given the tools to safely go off on their own.
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Oh, mea culpa. You didn’t EXPLICITLY say it was unfair to you, you said it wasn’t fair to expect the trainer to then fix any issues. But it is pretty obvious that you identify with trainers regarding these types of situations - after all, aren’t you yourself a trainer?
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You can tell someone who is welcome and not welcome on your property, you can not tell someone who can ride their horse. Very important difference. If you cant come to agreement, then the relationship is no longer beneficial to each party.
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A VERY important distinction.
This is one of those silly things I had to deal with growing up that just doesn’t make sense. If a person owns a horse and pays the trainer to help them with the horse, who cares if the owner (somehow) messes the horse up at a weekend fun show??? Trainer still gets paid to train, that’s their job.
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Well, for one, when the horse becomes lame or body sore, or is confused by conflicting training methods, the horse cares.
ETA: when the owner of the horse complains to the regular trainer that their horse isn’t making progress, after deviation from said trainer’s recommendations, the owner cares too.
So you educate the owner. Hopefully they learn from the experience, and if not? Owner will inevitably find some other way to make their horse sore, because they can’t be arsed to learn how their actions affect their horse or how to advocate for the animal they own.
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Absolutely agreed. Educating owners is paramount. And if they want to do as they please against regular trainer’s recommendations, they can (and absolutely should) find another program or straight boarding barn that suits their needs.
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I agree! This goes two ways though - I would hope that when a person signs up to board/train with a particular trainer that the rules and expectations (such as no going anywhere without trainer/trainer approval) are spelled out in the contract or from the very first meeting.
I have passed on quite a few programs due to this EXACT stipulation. And that’s fine! What makes me crazy is when it is NOT spelled out (appears to be what happened here to OP) and then suddenly the client is “not allowed” to do something completely within their rights. It’s an overstep of trainer boundaries at that point.
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Yes, I think a lot of these situations end up badly because of a lack of communication from both sides. It is also incumbent upon the trainer to spell out exactly why they have hesitations about a particular show or clinician or whatever. I think a lot of people in this situation that are being told they can’t/shouldn’t go somewhere don’t have adequate explanation from their trainer and so they just get bitter (understandably so) when the trainer only has the best interest of the horse and client in mind.
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On the general subject of leaving notes around the barn, in my experience, leaving a note is a little bit of a hit or miss method. The note can blow away, a horse could knock it down or eat it, a staff member might pull it down and then forget to mention it to the barn owner or trainer, yada, yada. The note is good as a back up to, but not a replacement for, a phone call, text, or email.
Also, and this is no reflection whatsoever on the OP or anyone else participating in this thread, but…
Any barn owner who has been in the horse business for more than five minutes probably has had some bad experiences with customers who do not pay their bills.
So a barn owner who walked out into the barn in the morning and saw an unexpected empty stall would first be thinking that the horse escaped and took off in the middle of the night. Next they might wonder if the person was skipping out on paying the board bill, with or without a note on the stall.
Either one or both of those thoughts would not be a pleasant way for the barn owner to start their day.
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(Edited to clarify that the following does not relate to having the discussion with a trainer about your desire to attend a show or clinic solo, but rather on the efficacy of leaving notes once that DIY aspect has been established)
My method as a DIY horse showing person was to leave a note in a specific corner of the barn’s white board starting about a week before the show or clinic, saying which day(s) we would be gone, and our departure time and estimated return time. That way, everyone had warning, including the barn help, and no one was surprised to find my horse gone from her stall or paddock. It also meant that the barn owner wouldn’t worry if we weren’t back in daylight hours if I knew in advance that we would be driving home in the evening.
Obviously that only works in a certain type/size of barn, and you do need to have a conversation at the beginning to ensure that the barn owner is on board with that approach, but it was a very effective means of keeping everyone in the loop for me.
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I think there is a conversation to be had about if, perhaps, a professional that you work with hears a plan to take a horse to an experience that will be actively detrimental to the horse - clinician that perhaps is known for overfacing horses, or that requires a certain type of rider (example: a bold rider, insecure riders come away losing confidence). But that is a conversation, not a Trainer Word Of God “because I say so” - and ideally, a professional would come to the conversation saying something to the effect of “I encourage you wanting to continue your education/experience, but I do not think A is a good fit for this for reasons 1, 2, and 3 - have you considered clinic/opportunity B or C? I think, given the scope of your (skill/horse/approach) they might be beneficial for you.” They aren’t shutting down any experience ever - they are redirecting to productive ones.
Continuing education is so important. Sometimes the same concept can be explained in a different way that makes things click. The same exercise can be done with a slightly different introduction and it comes off glowingly.
I admire professionals who seek out opportunities to continue to enhance, refine, or grow, their knowledge. Biggest green flag ever.
Don’t write a note though. We’re adults, we are clients, we can have these conversations. If someone expresses genuine discomfort with the idea ask them why directly - “Have you heard anything that would suggest (professional/experience) is a bad fit for me?” “Are there health concerns about this facility?” If they cannot express good reasons, I say go do what you want and enjoy yourself.
If it does come down to weirdly proprietary professionals (which do exist, it’s true) then you know going forward and can frame all future excursions with a polite but to the point “We will be gone Date to Date” and call it good.
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Excellently said.
Yeah that’s not what CCC means
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It never occurred to me to essentially ask any trainers we’ve worked with permission to do anything. I couldn’t work with someone like that. My horse is MY horse. We haul out to ride trails, do clinics, visit the indoor trail park, go cow sorting, do some showing here and there which I also have always done independently.
I keep her in the loop about any showing I have on my radar, but more so make sure the training rides she does complement what I’ll be doing and focus areas for the pony. In the case of an event I am on the fence about, or a clinician I’m not familiar with, I’ll ask her opinion but that’s about it. She often brings things to me that would be good opportunities for us without the expectation she will be tagging along.
Otherwise, we have a dry erase board on our stall that will say something like “Out of Office - at XYZ will be back around 123”. I do think it’s important to be clear about that in the event something awful happens.
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We kept our horses and ponies at home all through my daughters pony & junior days. We wintered indoors with a local trainer but generally just trailered in for lessons.
We worked both with a local trainer as well as a BNT nearby and frequently would travel to shows & clinics on our own but we always communicated our schedule with both. Both trainers were more than happy to set us up with another trainer if it was a show they weren’t attending or would help us with a game plan if no one they knew was going to be there.
If we were attending a clinic on our own, the trainers would usually call the clinician in advance to discuss where the horse/rider were in their training and anything else they felt should be shared. They would also sometimes hear from the clinician post clinic with feedback or insights on a particular issue that arose.
It can be done but communication is key!!
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