Anyone Ever Send a Horse to a Dressage Trainer and the Horse Gets "Broken"?

[grey_mare1]

Just curious, this happened to me. It wasn’t any fault of the trainer, they were doing their job to the best of their abilities. Apparently the trainer went to straighten a crookedness problem at the canter one day during training, and the horse fell apart physically. The vet found underlying issues that never came up when the amateur owner (me) was riding, so no one was aware of them.

The vet said its super common - horses get sent to pros, who demand more than the owners, and hidden weaknesses get aggravated and the horse gets “broken”. I would be interested to hear other folks’ experiences.

[Scribbler]

Well, would be interested what the underlying issue was, what the acute injury was, and what the trainer was doing to the horse.

Horses break down in all kinds of training if it is too fast, too harsh, or not appropriate for the horse’s level of health.

Suspensory tears are one thing that happens, especially if the trainer thinks that an imbalance or a dragging hind toe is just “being lazy” and pushes through. I know one horse that was eventually pts because of that sequence.

[SuzieQNutter]

We took on a new to us gelding over Christmas so Chiropractor was on Holiday.

I started training him and he was doing well. We took him as soon as he was back from Holiday.

He was used as a light brigade horse. I hate to think of what they did to him. He was out every which way imaginable.

I commented that he was going so well. He said they do do well for a time and then one day they will fall in a heap.

Instead he has gone from strength to strength and as now able to chew from dentist and jaw back in from chiropractor and not sore any more from chiropractor he is now a fat horse in work and is a tb.

[Mardi]

@grey_mare

The vet said its super common - horses get sent to pros, who demand more than the owners, and hidden weaknesses get aggravated and the horse gets “broken”.

Also happens in clinics. Big name coach teaches up and coming trainer on trainer’s new upper level prospect. Big name coach asks for movement trainer hasn’t schooled yet, so trainer declines. Big name coach urges trainer to try it, when trainer still declines, BNC ridicules trainer. Trainer acquiesces, asks the horse to do it. Trainer feels horse go off, and stops clinic. Horse injured, never recovered after long rehab, now retired.

[Mardi]

I can think of at least two BNTs (one a team rider, and another who has aspirations to be one) who have broken their own horses in the last few years. Both horses haven’t come back.

[Huntin_Pony]

I understand the risk of a horse being injured when changing their way of moving in a dramatic way, but I don’t see that trainers pose more risk than owners and, IME, pasture accidents.

Horses do have a tendency to injure themselves! Always sad and sometimes tragic. Sorry if OP had such an incident.

[dog_amp_horsemom]

I sent my warmblood to be backed and he came back in severe pain and torn ligaments on his back. I do blame the trainer, my Vet asked his name so she would never recommend him. He is a so called reputable cowboy / natural horseman and his daughter in Georgia. they rode this horse knowing there was something not right.

[MsM]

Im not sure what the OP is looking for here. Horses get injured at home or at trainers. Increased work can reveal unsuspected issues even when the work was increased responsibly. Horses can just injure themselves in turnout (mine!) Or, of course, the trainer ( or owner) could irresponsibly push a horse past its obvious limits, injuring the horse. Dont know what happened to her horse but I have seen a number of “sound” horses reveal underlying issues as the demands increased. But they werent “broken” they just required some management and adjustments in training.

[TMares]

I leased a lamb of a 17 yo gelding to a friend who needed a solid citizen to learn low level dressage on. Her arena is much deeper than mine, and Id always done more trail and field riding with him. In a reasonable program with her and our shared instructor, he got really sore and unhappy. I found he was body sore all over. I brought him home and with rest and massage, he was right as rain. But he couldn’t work that hard at his age (unsteady posting trot in deep sand on contact five days a week) without a lot more therapeutic support than made sense for either of us.

[Nestor]

@MsM

Im not sure what the OP is looking for here. Horses get injured at home or at trainers. Increased work can reveal unsuspected issues even when the work was increased responsibly. Horses can just injure themselves in turnout (mine!) Or, of course, the trainer ( or owner) could irresponsibly push a horse past its obvious limits, injuring the horse. Dont know what happened to her horse but I have seen a number of “sound” horses reveal underlying issues as the demands increased. But they werent “broken” they just required some management and adjustments in training.

This is what I was going to say. I’ve seen it happen both ways. Irresponsible trainers you can at least hopefully spot before it happens, but just because physical things show up with an increased workload doesn’t mean the trainer is necessarily at fault.

[Dressage59]

My sister had this experience. One of her mares had a baby and she kept it. She’s one of those natural horsemanship type people, so the horse learned to be tacked up while standing loose, great for the vets and farrier, perfect gentleman on the ground. They even rode him at the walk and trot. She took the horse to a trainer and the horse came back a wreck. Didn’t want to be saddled, etc. She also would start bucking out of the blue. A couple years later, she took him to another trainer several hours away. The trainer had the same experience with the bucking - the horse out of the blue would buck; it could be at the beginning, middle or end of the ride and there was never any warming from the horse. That trainer had several employees ride horses plus he did it himself. The bucking experience happened to all of them. Now he’s a pasture ornament. I wonder sometimes if some implants (usually for mares) would have helped. He’s turned into somewhat of a dominant gelding.

P.S. The first trainer said he acted up so badly that he had to “take him down.” Not exactly sure what that means.

[AZ_TD]

If I have a horse in training, I watch the trainer ride. I would never send my horse away unsupervised especially in the beginning.

[Edre]

It seems like there are two different things being discussed here…

There are the “bad trainer” stories - horses are being injured from poor training and poor riding.

The OP seems to be talking about something different from that, though. They actually state they don’t lay responsibility on the trainer for it. What they seem to be talking about are the horses that may have underlying “issue” that never surface in light workloads or modest riding expectations (which is what many amateur owners only ever ask of their horses). However, under a more capable rider who can ask more of a horse, or when the capable rider is being paid to work a horse on a regular schedule (more work and harder work than what the horse does under the owner) they find that the horse may have some “issue” that had previously gone undetected. And I think this happens - I know many horses with amateur owners and modest skill who never ask much of their horses. However, even in a once a week training ride, the (fit, educated, and well schooled**) horses are working harder than they generally do with their amateur owners and in these rides issues can come to light much, much more quickly (both because the professional has more experience with detecting issues, and the questions being asked of the horse are more advanced and require a higher level of fitness, physical comfort, and capability to perform).

**And all of this aside, it does go without saying that no good professional just takes a horse from a pleasure riding amateur owner and cranks it into trying to do passage or piaffe. I’m not talking about professionals who are working horses too quickly or too hard based on the level of fitness and training the horse is at.

[hut-ho78]

I’ve seen trainers who were very good with mature horses, in my opinion, seem to overwork one young horse after another in a behind the bit frame, hard work in the arena, little hacking out and as the young horse became sore have it evaluated, find an injury, never question their own methods and then start grumbling that they were going to require a vetcheck before they took another young horse in training. I’ve seen trainers misread a horse for a behavioral issue and discipline it when the horse was sore. I’ve seen trainers and non trainers get carried away on a good horse and overwork them. I’ve also seen trainers figure out soreness from behavioral issues, help with rehab, and be rather a magician with bringing a horse along. I think there are some very good riders who do not know how to bring a young horse along. I was bedazzled by trainers when I was first exposed to them. I value them immensely always. It has been a joy to learn better methods for just about everything. However, I am much more cautious now. Even the ones that have been certified don’t always pay attention to the horse. I think if you own the horse you are riding, don’t plan to sell it, have limited access to retiring it, that you lean to value the cost of upkeep and the work to keep them happy and healthy. At the top levels, it seems like any professional sport, if one breaks, there are ten more waiting and sponsors to pay for it.

[Myout]

Comes down to a lack of horsemanship skills…being able to read the horse. Yes, frequently a amateur, one horse type of person, skirts around any issues and then asks a trainer to fix said issue in 30 days. That issue is the horse protecting itself and the trainer now has to deal with it, preferably quickly and so it never reappears. Recipe for disaster depending on skill level of both owner and trainer, and exactly what the issue is in the horse. I have seen it time and again. The only way around it would be a full nuclear scan before sending horse off to trainer…so owner knows horse is 100%…and I doubt any horse is 100%.

[atlatl]

@Dressage59

P.S. The first trainer said he acted up so badly that he had to “take him down.” Not exactly sure what that means.

It means they likely tied up a leg until the horse was on the ground. If you’ve seen the movie the The Horse Whisperer, there’s such a scene. The theory being that when the horse is totally vulnerable, the “trainer” may sit on it’s neck, the horse gives in and accepts the “trainer” as dominant.

Back to the original topic; what I’ve seen happen on several occasions is that the horse is already “broken” and the owner just doesn’t recognize it but the trainer does. Sad either way.

[xeroxchick]

Full disclaimer: I am not a dressage person, so that being said, I have found that horses that are perfectly fine in backyard or medium work might have an underlying issue that comes out with hard work, like a wonderful mare that after a six hour hard hunt came up lame because she had three cysts on her navicular bone. It never came out before, but that hard run brought out a real issue. I have also found that some horses just don’t do well in certain environments, no fault of the trainer, just not thriving in a busy barn, or stabled near a stallion, etc. like a nice horse I sent to be trained that had freak outs completely out of character. I sold the horse to someone in VA who never had an issue and he was fine. I think he just hated the whole set up where he was being trained.
i imagine that if one sent a horse to a trainer that the trainer has pressure to get the horse to another level and might be pushing the horse a lot, especially in a string of horses in training. They have expectations of results in a certain time frame.

[hut-ho78]

@dog&horsemom

I sent my warmblood to be backed and he came back in severe pain and torn ligaments on his back. I do blame the trainer, my Vet asked his name so she would never recommend him. He is a so called reputable cowboy / natural horseman and his daughter in Georgia. they rode this horse knowing there was something not right.

That sounds like a bad saddle fit issue and very hard riding.

[anon68314200]

Well… what I can tell you is that if I am paid to train a horse and I tell the owners that horse has some (undiscovered/subclinical/undefinable/not yet understood] Issue that prevents progress then I have been/will be told that I OBVIOSLY do not ride/train/understand/, etc well enough. I have had vets tell me that I am “just not working the horse hard enough,” “just don’t understand proper rein contact”, etc.

By and large horse owners are in no, way, shape or form interested in being told that the horse is ‘not up to expectations’, ‘May be on the 10 year training plan,’ ‘are really not suited for the task’ ‘are really not interested in the job,’ ‘will likely be unsuitbale for an amateur who does not ride all day long.’. Etc

the industry had evolved as such, that owners want progress. Period. 99% of professionals (if they want to stay in business) will proceed on a direct line to ‘get it done’ ASAP.

In order for this to change, consumer society has to change. If consumers want crap, they get crap. The free market is a valueless machine.

[grey_mare1]

And now……. on to the psychological/existential part of the issue…as I work my way through this adversity, I’m wondering what to tell myself, other than: “Everything has a reason for unfolding the way it does, we just don’t understand it at the time.” What are good encouragements I can tell myself during this most disheartening time?