Bullies in the Horse Business

[Beentheredonethat]

This applies to all life, but recently I had two startling incidents that got me thinking about how bad this is in this business.

1. I and about every other sane person left a local barn over a period of a few months because, despite the possibility of it being phenomenal, it was run by a charismatic, drinking, druggie with psychotic issues. It was fascinating to watch her completely screw some people. She would get them to fork over $600/$1000 a month for nothing. She would never give them lessons, train their horses, anything. If they complained or said anything, she would vary between flattery, screaming, crying, threatening, etc.

Recently I got a text from one of her “clients” who has been complaining about being screwed for years, but just couldn’t leave. She was owed $4k for money paid for no training. (We’d had many previous conversations about her complaining about paying for lessons and not getting them, and me asking WHY did she keep paying.) I got tired of it and told her I didn’t want to hear it. She needed to get out of there. She said she couldn’t afford it. I finally agreed to move her for free, using my trailer, going back to a place I never wanted to see again. I did, and she forgot to mention one of her horses didn’t load, so I almost lost a finger. Whatever. I helped someone, so now they can have some peace.

Well, apparently, within four days, they “snuck” out of the new barn (after having paid board) back to the abusive situation. ??? No one cared because of course they can do what they want, but why the sneaky and not bothering to say anything. A text to her asking for basic courtesy got a rant just like the psychotic barn “manager” about me being selfish and narcissistic. ??? Well, good reason to block someone for life.

How does this woman abuse people and get them to run back to her? The barn where I am she used to run and left it a mess with huge debts. (She’d take all of the board and buy herself stuff and not pay bills.) Everyone knows what she’s like, but no matter what, she still gets people to give her money and be loyal.

2. The barn where I am has mostly really good people. One “trainer” is also one of these abusers who gets people to do whatever he wants. I was having a conversation with one of his “clients” about why she had never ridden her horse she had “in training” for three years and was afraid of. She knew the “trainer” never did anything with the horse, yet kept paying him. I asked her WHY did she keep paying him? She got this scared look in her eyes and put her fingers to her lips ???

She “tried” to go to another trainer at the barn who would actually help her ride her horse, but when abusive trainer found out, she lied to him and told him the other guy was trying to steal her away. So, now she’s really afraid and makes sure to pay him every month so her won’t yell at her.

I know this is addictive behavior, going back to the abuser. It took me a long time to learn this about my family. You cannot change them. I just don’t get how people do this, especially in this business. How do people bully people into giving them money and loyalty for nothing, and abuse the people trying to help them?

Just musing.

[OverandOnward]

You need other friends. You can’t help these people. They may behave as if they want you to rescue them - somehow - but that isn’t the game they are playing. They will keep you on this cycle for as long as you will play.

They are adults who have bank accounts, phones to summon professional services for whatever they need with their horses (like a trailer ride to a new barn), and the ability to choose. They are not married to the trainers; the trainers are not their legal guardians; the trainer does not control their access to transportation or finances. This is NOT the same situation as an abused family member, no matter how much they make it look that way.

And they have chosen.

Now you need to choose, too. This is not about them. It is about your choice to be in their perpetual drama - or not.

[Scribbler]

The question I ask myself these days is, What rewards are people getting from choosing to stay in their apparently awful situations?

We tend to assume that everyone who gets a horse wants what we want: to improve in skills, to enjoy their horse, to ride as much as possible in a sane, trouble-free, situation with intelligent, cost-effective guidance.

But a certain percentage of horse owners actually don’t really want to ride and are conflicted about that. If they were honest to themselves about this, they’d have a retired lead n feed, or some minis, as many do. But others are torn on their basic motivations, maybe afraid or anxious about riding, or getting tired of it, so they need to manufacture reasons for not getting in the saddle to cover their guilt over not riding like they “should.” So their horse ownership becomes a charade full of avoidance of riding.

As far as choosing to stay in or return voluntarily to crazy trainers, all I can say is that the drama and attention the trainer dishes out is filling a strong need in the client. Sometimes, as with the woman who asked the OP to trailer her horse, you find out that the client, apparent victim, has the same basic personality traits as the trainer, only isn’t in a position of enough power to impose herself on the community.

Adults by and large do what they want to do, in the end. It’s always more useful to look at what people do, rather than what they say they want to do. If they stay in a particular barn or with a particular trainer, that situation is probably meeting their deeper needs. You can’t rescue them or change them, and as the OP has found out, it can be dangerous to try.

[Cancara]

Incredible as it sounds I also think it’s sometimes ‘better the devil you know’ and ‘things could be so much worse’!!! A friend of mine was bullied at a boarding stables and in the end forced out of it. It was baffling, she’s so easy going, but I think being the youngest she became an easy target for some stressed out adults. She was so miserable in the end there that she’s now sitting at a stables where her horses live in an actual mire or can’t even leave their stables for weeks on end all winter, rather than move. Obviously these people must have stabled in the seventh circle of hell itself, but it can happen. You can cope with it so it’s better than risking ending up somewhere you can’t maybe?

[2DogsFarm]

A trainer/friend once put it as succinctly as possible:
“You enable the trainer”
Insert BO/BM, etc…

Or, as I like to say of any enabling situation:
You can’t be a doormat if you don’t lay down.

[Texarkana]

I grew up with someone who basically bullied their way into a well respected and successful training business. I’m not sure what surprises me more-- the fact that said trainer has made it so far by being a horrible person, or the fact that many of the original clients are still with them! :eek:

So much for the golden rule…

[The_Centaurian]

I know someone who would cyber-bully me if I let him. Since I can’t stand him in real life, and I choose to opt out of social media entirely, I am not prey to his shenanigans, but I know some people who are! Everyone in this scenario is an adult over the age of 30. I find it shocking and childish.

[Palm_Beach]

You can’t save them all.

[tabula_rashah]

Because most people are “sheep” who never learned how to think for themselves.

[mvp]

[QUOTE=Scribbler;8780800]
The question I ask myself these days is, What rewards are people getting from choosing to stay in their apparently awful situations? [/QUOTE]

Indeed. As much as the “bully” seems the obvious problem, what about the people who co-sign that BS so that it keeps working? Look, I find the term “bully” tough to apply among adults. And along these same lines, I find their (adult) patsies as much to blame.

It’s frustrating to be in a business where being clear, ethical and honest doesn’t satisfy the customer who is being exploited by a competitor.

And the “might as well stay with the devil you know” logic is an example of paying customers keeping things as they are. Good pros or BOs or farriers or whathaveyou can’t stay in business if people want to pay bad ones! Similarly, it’s hard to convince folks that you can find a professional in the horse biz if they have allowed one badly-chosen trainer to stand as a representative for all of them, with no further looking for a better pro required.

If you choose and pay and stay with bad people for lack of effort to find better, that’s your bad.

[Pennywell_Bay]

[QUOTE=OverandOnward;8780740]
You need other friends. You can’t help these people. They may behave as if they want you to rescue them - somehow - but that isn’t the game they are playing. They will keep you on this cycle for as long as you will play.

They are adults who have bank accounts, phones to summon professional services for whatever they need with their horses (like a trailer ride to a new barn), and the ability to choose. They are not married to the trainers; the trainers are not their legal guardians; the trainer does not control their access to transportation or finances. This is NOT the same situation as an abused family member, no matter how much they make it look that way.

And they have chosen.

Now you need to choose, too. This is not about them. It is about your choice to be in their perpetual drama - or not. :)[/QUOTE]

The situation described should be its own Intervention series. You have to let them go if they are putting themselves in this situation. They went back, they don’t want to be out. They can’t whine to you about how horrible the trainer is, complain about the crappy treatment, how much they spend etc. OP- don’t be an enabler.

There’s a trainer I knew who was the most disrespectful SOB, screamed and belittled on of his AAs. She married him. Guess what- 20 some years later he is still yelling and screaming like an ass at shows. At least they didn’t have kids. My dad turned to me at one show and said “If X ever spoke to you like that, I’d pull you and your horse out in a second. Don’t let it happen”

DON’T LET IT HAPPEN. That stuck with me. You can’t control how people treat you but you can control if you let them by staying in that situation. If the LOOOVVVEE the trainer, I’d have advised them to sit down and say “Hey- don’t yell at me, train my freakin horse, settle up my bill whatever, or I am leaving”

The issue is, some people tend to gravitate to that situation.

And it isn’t just prevalent in horses. IT is in almost every business. The horse industry is just generally pretty small and close.

[Guilherme]

How about some “rail bird” philosophy: cognitive dissonance.

Most of us, at one time or another, have made fundamentally “irrational” decisions because of some “human” or “humane” motive that, when explored, was not going to do what we wanted it to do. To do that every now and then is to be a human being; to live life that way is to suffer from a pathology.

Maybe this is magnified in the equine world because everything is magnified there. Our “big dogs” weigh north of 1000 pounds, require feed by the ton, need tack and equipment to useful that costs thousands of dollars, and cost an arm and a leg to keep in riding shape even without disease or injury. Explain to me how this is “rational?”

Even within the equine world, though, it’s possible to make intelligent choices if one chooses to do so. But it’s a choice, one that each person must make.

Put another way, “crazy cat ladies” got nothing on your Mark One Mod Zero horse owner!!!

G.

[Crockpot]

It is ironic that the OP should be complaining about bullies.

[SendenHorse]

[QUOTE=Crockpot;8781042]
It is ironic that the OP should be complaining about bullies.[/QUOTE]

that is exactly what i was thinking!

[atr]

When I watch the weird stuff like this that goes on in my local horse community I think it’s almost cult-like.

People get sucked into a “team” thing, with the trainer being the “team leader.” They are often relatively new to the sport at the start of this and believe that this is the “one true way” and they are scared to face life out there in the big wide world without their team members.

Me? I’m a difficult client because I am knowledgeable and independent and the thought of “being on a team” gives me hives.

[Pennywell_Bay]

[QUOTE=atr;8781193]
When I watch the weird stuff like this that goes on in my local horse community I think it’s almost cult-like.

People get sucked into a “team” thing, with the trainer being the “team leader.” They are often relatively new to the sport at the start of this and believe that this is the “one true way” and they are scared to face life out there in the big wide world without their team members.

Me? I’m a difficult client because I am knowledgeable and independent and the thought of “being on a team” gives me hives.[/QUOTE]

Nothing wrong with preferring solo, “knowledgeable and independent” does not equate to difficult. You may be difficult (I don’t know you) but plenty of non-difficult clients have/been are knowledgeable and independent.

[trubandloki]

Come to the dark side, we have cookies

Pennywell, I totally love your signature.

[BeeHoney]

It takes two to tango. The crazy usually goes both ways. People who stick with an abusive trainer or a trainer that is ripping them off often have their own issues.

Sometimes clients with their own personal issues find that they can’t survive comfortably in a well ordered barn. In my own experience as a BO, I have found that people with mental issues often want to operate outside the rules and behavior expectations that apply to everyone else. Unfortunately, having rules and expecting a certain level of behavior are really key to having a well organized and pleasant barn.

So, IME, sometimes a person like this is more comfortable dealing with an unpleasant or crazy BO/trainer rather than having to follow too many rules and fit in. I think that in the OP’s first example this could have been the case.

I’ve never had a good grasp as to why people worship a particular trainer, good or bad, as if they are some kind of a one-of-a-kind guru to enlightenment. Don’t get me wrong, I love riding with a good trainer, and good riding IS a form of enlightenment, but there is no one-of-a-kind guru for it out there and changing trainers will not cause you to stumble backwards on your path.

[OverandOnward]

[QUOTE=Pennywell Bay;8780985]
The situation described should be its own Intervention series. You have to let them go if they are putting themselves in this situation. They went back, they don’t want to be out. They can’t whine to you about how horrible the trainer is, complain about the crappy treatment, how much they spend etc. OP- don’t be an enabler.
…[/QUOTE]

We have an idea in our culture that Interventions are part of being a friend, when someone is profoundly dysfunctional. Including our employer, employee, family member, barn manager, or even trainer, etc. We think we can have a moment of reality-TV and fix their behavior.

Step back and assess - is this person truly, physically, trapped in the situation? Addicts and those who are financially dependent on abusers, or physically controlled by abusers, may well be trapped by forces beyond their control, to varying extents. Such truly unfortunate situations are in no way on a par with troubled people who are more addicted to drama than anything else.

There are many first-world problems where the only barrier to ‘out’ is themselves. The door is wide open for their exit at will. Their friends and family encourage them to leave, and would be delighted and supportive if they would go. But they stay and stay.

What is needed is qualified professional help - in both types of situations. Amateur interventions need to have low expectations of results.

It is very hard to leave behind some ‘friends’ who give the veneer of being good, nice people. But if their friendship is based on an enabling relationship, that isn’t really a friendship at all.

In other words OP … from your end of things, the issue is not the over-bearing trainer. You need to ask yourself why you keep listening and being used in the same way, over and over, when there are saner, more supportive people in your life. That’s not meant as a criticism, as you are undoubtedly a genuinely good person who goes out of their way to make something better for others (or try to). It’s just that your efforts would be more appreciated, and likely do more good, elsewhere.

[Pennywell_Bay]

[QUOTE=trubandloki;8781402]
Pennywell, I totally love your signature.[/QUOTE]

Thank you. No one accepts my offer so I may have to try “We have margaritas” or for the COTH “popcorn and wine”