It’s likely time, finances and plain old ability are more of a factor than your age.
But you sure as heck won’t know until you try. But as said above how you approach trainers needs to be more nuanced than I want to go to the top. The top is a wide range of things.
Mine was more like I’d like to do the 3’ hunters, don’t need the hack winner, just want to enjoy mytime at the shows more than anything. That let the trainer know exactly what I was looking for and where I needed to be mindful for a budget.
The under 1.1m jumpers, is a much more economical place to be, especially if you can ride the quirky ones.
It may be those programs were not the right fit. I know plenty of programs for instance that cater to the hunters over the jumpers. And their preferred business model would be to have a horse they could show in the green or working divisions while their client does the adult or AOs. That’s not as much of a thing in the jumpers, so you may not fit that model.
Speaking as primarily a jumper rider myself, I’ve noticed that a lot of programs don’t focus as much on the jumpers. The adult and amateur jumper divisions are much smaller than the hunter counterparts. I’m currently the only amateur jumper rider at our barn. Everyone else does hunters, apart from my trainer who does both rings.
For the record, I’m also 35 doing the 1.20m. You can definitely get there. What you don’t say, though, is where you’re starting. It sounds like you don’t have a horse. Finding a program where you can lease or buy a good packer will be the first step, since I can’t think of many people who would let you do the jumpers on a lesson horse. Have you competed before? Jumped? Ridden regularly? All of those things would factor into where you should start.
I actually hate seeing people starting in the itty bitty jumpers. It tends to encourage wild, too fast riding that doesn’t work when the jumps get bigger. Learning pace, rhythm, and adjustability in the hunter or equitation rings can set you up better for stepping into the jumper ring at 1.0m. But that’s just my opinion.
It’s honestly been my experience that a lot of trainers don’t want super ambitious adults! They might prefer the clients who want the trainer to school the horse on Tuesday, show Wednesday and Thursday in pro classes and then have the client show up on the weekend for the adult classes. It makes them more money!
Sounds like you might need a different program if the one you’re at isn’t working.
I just meant to caution you that’s it’s hard to get ahold of different trainers if you’re wanting to move or get started even with the perfect set of words. Going a little overboard on the reach out can turn people off.
It’s just that as a trainer, you would have so many blowhards and delusional self important people that you discount everything they say until you see them ride. True for both returning adult riders who are past their glory days, and proud mothers of “talented” advanced beginner juniors.
There’s also the choice of trainer.
Around here, most trainers with websites and seeking clients do under 3 foot rated and unrated shows locally. They have primarily juniors, some adults. The trainers that travel to the 4 and 5 foot derbies etc are much more hidden, they exist but they aren’t offering lesson programs on FB.
You are likely going to want to start your re-rider journey with the first kind of trainer, get your skills polished up, and learn the social geography of your current area in order to know where to go next. But the starter barn trainer is not necessarily going to know what to do with a client who has outsize ambitions beyond what the trainer themselves can offer or has even done themselves
To me, observing many many returning riders of various capacities and watching my friends who are trainers, a horseless re-rider who said “my goal is to show at HITS” or “I want to ride GP Dressage” would be a bit of a red flag. The horse community welcomes people who are in it for the long haul.
I would be more confident in someone who said “I want to get back in the saddle, and I want to polish up my jumping. I’d like to see where that takes me, and I have the time and cash to down the road lease and compete if things go well. But mostly I really want to be around horses again.”
Because in both adults and juniors, competition focused ambition can be very fragile and easily frustrated. And then the rider quits for another sport.
You need to enjoy the journey. It’s fine to have a big goal but you need to have tiny steps and e.joy them all.
In your case, that might be: find a sane safe lesson barn and take private lessons in the morning to avoid the after school crush. Take lessons several times a week to build up your strength and fix any weaknesses in your skill set that have crept in. Spend time on distances with poles or cross rails, don’t worry about height as yet. Go to the gym on other days. Guaranteed you will find things like core you need to work on.
If the barn offers it, go to low level shows (rated or not) and jump low courses to get back the feeling of being in the ring.
Once you feel you have maxed out your starter barn you will have a better idea where to move next and you will be fit enough to benefit from the higher level coaching.
But here’s a big question. How long are you willing to give the process? If you ended up at the starter barn for 2 or 3 years working on your skills, would you get disappointed and frustrated? Or would you love every minute of it?
How will you recover emotionally and physically from the inevitable falls?
If circumstances push you towards dressage or working equitation or cattle penning, will you think you failed or will you welcome the new direction and things you never knew existed?
How resilient are you, what is it that matters about horses and riding to you? Are you setting up a goal for adult you, or for child you to make up for what you missed out on?
This is great advice. Very few people start at the barn they end up doing the bigger sticks with, unless they’re someone’s younger sibling. This is especially true for re-riders.
What are your goals? AOs? Just to show the jumpers and see where it goes? Do you have six figures of cash to burn every year doing the Florida circuit or chasing great placings at Indoors? That will all determine your path.
ETA: most of the programs getting names on the leaderboard in big classes at big venues (even just the high adults or similar) don’t take clients “off the street” as it were. They’re full, in high demand, and they know what programs they like to take clients from. Similar to the job market, in some ways! Very few places focus on the jumpers AND have a starter program. Getting in with a reputable trainer that does “smaller” stuff and working your way up is a good plan. Most GOOD barns are happy to pass people on when those clients outgrow their program.
Do what I did as a post 30 mom and spend a few seasons fox hunting and come back and tell me if you really miss showing
All the guts and glory of the jumpers with better company at a lower price point. So what, you don’t get a cheap ribbon or trophy. You’ll make connections to show if you really want to.
Good point. As said above, it is not necessary to go cross country, just concentrate on combined tests with dressage and stadium.Though XC and fox hunting are great confidence builders
Oh, actually everyone has been pretty well-behaved!! As a group, we can get judgey, but don’t let that stop you from getting what you need from the threads.
Either way, this is super helpful to understand the perspectives of trainers and what they are experiencing. Really appreciate your input here and thank you a ton for your time in this thread. I feel quite a bit lost when it comes to know what the “right” situation is but also really was looking for that dose of reality when it came to getting back to riding.
Really love this idea. I come from a hunter first, then dressage background. Always trying to dig into my roots with the dressage foundation (this is where the mom trainer comes in, she was a dressage trainer - absolutely nothing big time but honestly she’s an amazing rider and still have so much to learn from her)
Now if only I can find that eventing barn here in Nashville.
Awesome, totally heard. Kind of the path I’m following now with taking lessons 2-3 times a week at an entry level barn, meeting new people, just spent time at Brownland in Nashville this weekend to soak in the atmosphere and learn about the barns and teams that were there (a weekend long show) and to just watch. This entire thread has been so helpful. Super appreciative of everyones time.
LOVE this dig in here. REALLY good question and appreciate the inner reflection for a moment. I’ve actually taken quite a bit of time to consider this but its always good to revisit. I’m viewing this process as a lifelong process (atleast while my body is down to handle it) I definitely have moved out of my frustration age and am super open to the process. Sometimes the journey ends up being more fun than the end goal. Its the learning to get to 3’+ jumpers that is the most exciting. But also, i love all forms of riding and if my skills and body ends up not taking to jumpers, im totally open to any discipline (would head to dressage next) because just being on a horse and working in tandem is alone a great outcome. And it actually feels like I’m really serving my adult self. It just didn’t work as a kid, I had a lot of frustrations and a lot to grow through learning on green horses as a teenager and that ego that i once carried has hopefully shed itself. The horse passion has always been there, its really just about digging into this new found …confidence? i don’t want to say fearlessness, because thats just stupid. Maybe a new found mind-body connection that I didn’t have before? …thanks for coming to my TED talk. Apologies for the novel.
Welp, verbatim this has been my approach with all barns and all trainers - so far so good thankfully and am feeling pretty validated here. Glad i never mentioned the latter like i did in this thread initially , just wanted to lay it all out here to get real perspective and actually, I totally got what I asked for. Appreciate your incredibly helpful input here. And appreciate that those statements are red flags rather than clear goals to help someone gauge your “passion” but can see why that can be off putting with the type of people that can gravitate to horses without the passion.
So it sounds like you are well situated to ramp up your returning rider self and explore the future!
I would say that paradoxically, getting tied down to ownership of the wrong horse (or wrong for right now horse) can be limiting or determine your trajectory, but that owning the right horse can really make things happen. So be careful what horse you commit to.
You could love a horse and have a career limiting injury or find out he can’t progress in your discipline of choice. Etc. Or he’s talented but too much horse.
Leasing is a good way to avoid this, but eventually you will end up owning one whether you intend to or not
This. Don’t buy green right now, don’t buy quirky, and don’t buy something on a whim.
Practically, success with horses requires a lot of money or a hefty dose of pragmatism. Usually both. The easiest way to hamstring your “career” is to get attached emotionally and financially to the wrong horse. Leasing hurts the wallet but can really help with this - at least for now!
As a group, we can get judgey, but don’t let that stop you from getting what you need from the threads.
