Catherine Haddad's latest editorial

[meupatdoes]

[QUOTE=TickleFight;7102934]
Given that you’ve decided to hang your shingle as a self-professed “pro,” it might behove you to watch what you say on public forums. The shrill, shrewish, and antagonistic tone of many of your COTH posts may cost you future clients.[/QUOTE]

Is there some reason you are repeatedly attacking me?
Have I attacked you in some way?

I criticized a clinician you have ridden with for the public dismissive (some might even call them shrill and shrewish) comments she made about clinic students and their trainers after she taught clinics specifically advertised as “beginners welcome.”

I am not attacking you but you sure are attacking me…

[Tasker]

Hey Meupadoes - your PM box is full.

But before anyone is thinking that I’m saying anything that’s not for public consumption, it’s an offer to come audit next time I go to ride with CHS. As in a free pass to watch and learn if you’d like.

Let me know via email either way - ellie@watermark-farm.net

[Mardi]

This part struck me: “To show up for training with an accomplished rider before you are ready to benefit from his or her knowledge is bad form and disrespectful.” WOW.

No true instructor is ever above teaching those below.

Ms. Haddad, if you’d prefer to teach a certain level and higher, fine. Keep it to yourself and simply let the clinic organizers know in advance. And if they ask you why you have this preference, graciously say “There are better lower level instructors out there than me” and then name a few.

[tja789]

Perhaps despite the rude tone CHS is doing low-level ammies a favor. Most likely the trainers who organized her recent clinics tried to get local professionals and advanced riders to purchase lesson slots. Maybe these folks don’t especially admire CHS’s riding or dislike her personality or couldn’t afford the cost. In any case, they declined to attend. So the trainer did what clinic organizers do all the time: they encouraged (bullied, coerced) low level riders to fork over the money and fill the clinic slots. These riders are not necessarily eager to honor CHS or brag about riding with her. They’re just helping their trainer out, willingly or often somewhat unwillingly. It apparently hasn’t occurred to CHS that if there were professionals and advanced riders lining up to pay for her clinics she wouldn’t be seeing so many beginners. The blogs suggests that she’s more than a little out of touch with reality, at least with regard to her own fame and popularity. However, I agree that low-level riders can find better things to spend their money on than a lesson with her. And once their money is gone, CHS will probably be teaching many fewer clinics.

[Foxtrot_s]

She must have enough private clients and sponsors. She does not need “us”.

Clinics are put on by people so they can get a ride with the big guns and have the minions pay for it with their fees. Almost by definition the clinic will be filled with lesser beings.

Again, I can’t say I blame her. I’d be bored silly trying to get a bunch of riders of varying abilities to a level where I could make something of them, and then to go on my way to another bunch of the same but in a different town/country and never see them again. (If I was her.)

A really committed rider rides several horses, works really, really hard and does it day in and day out. I’d guess she would like to help these.

[Mardi1]

[QUOTE=netg;7102786]
The most BNT I rode with was Jeremy Steinberg, and he’s fantastic with varying levels. He’s very much a teacher at heart, thus his getting the role as youth/young rider coach - it fits his skills. [/QUOTE]

Agreed. He knows no boundaries when it comes to teaching various levels, or rider ability. And he recognizes and takes into account the horse’s conformation and what the horse is capable, or incapable, of doing. He’s a natural teacher.

It’s for these qualities that he was asked (and accepted) the invite to be a guest speaker on our upcoming January trip.

[Velvet]

I totally appreciate her sentiment, but the reality is that it’s almost impossible to do. I’d love to see this happen, but I know what it takes to fill a clinic. I know the politics and the cost. I know that you have to take anyone who is willing to pony up the money. You need to build a group of repeat customers. Too many pros do NOT HAVE THE MONEY. It’s all about living hand to mouth and then hoping to find a sponsor. Your students have money and pay you, but when very BNT comes to town, they have the cash in hand and while some will pay your way, many just want their own ride.

So you organize and you work your butt off for a couple of rides. It makes your clients happy and you get your rides so you can keep advancing.

It’s not ideal, but it’s how it goes in the states. Our system is broken. We are left lagging behind most European countries. But we also have people who can and do find a way to get to the top on their own. It can still happen and does. That doesn’t really happen in Europe.

How many excellent riders out there do not have the horse to go to the top? How many people in the states that are not that good have that horse and will never part with it? I’m not saying either is right or wrong. I’m just saying that it happens more here than over the pond. It’s reality. It’s just how things are and even here the politics in the USDF have been trying to kill the Instructor Certification Program for years. And they’re doing a good job of it.

[meupatdoes]

OK, so, I live in Buffalo.
I attempt to cobble together some sort of dressage education for myself here.
Think about that for a second.

Now let’s discuss options for “pursuing a dressage education in Buffalo.”

1. I could train with people locally. We know what CHS thinks of most of the local yokels and what they do for their students. I largely agree, which severely limits my options here. There is one person I think is quite good. But what if I want to supplement my education with someone who has students with national/international showing resumes?

a.) I could drive to them, which is a minimum of 8 hours one way to anyone that my horse has to stand in the trailer. Scratch off the winter months, the driving is too hazardous and everyone I would go to is in Florida then anyway.
b.) I could try to bring somebody in, or support the barn owner down the road who really tries to get good people in.

So then in my quest to please for the love of God learn more, I look around to see who will fill the other 7 slots of any potential clinic. I know one I2 amateur who just sold her upper level horse and bought a Second Level replacement. Another amateur with two upper level horses. My trainer’s horses are retired, so she’s out. Hm, there is an eventing trainer who does some dressage nearby. My Third Level friend who just started her homebred in April and miiiight drive it the 3 hours to get here, if I beg…

Speaking of this “begging,” did I also mention that the price of one slot for someone of high caliber inclusive of travel expenses and insurance basically means that people will spend half the average board bill around here for 45 minutes and the stall? Board is like $450 a month here, people, not $2,500 like it is in central jersey where Catherine lives. $250 is 60% board bill to pay, not 10%. It is like trying to convince the customers to employ saddle fitters and buy saddles that fit, which is my other endless quest. In NJ or Westchester you tell them, “What’s one extra board payment for a saddle that really fits your horse?” Here in Buffalo it’s like, “What’s…half a year of board payments for a saddle…”

Here my double bridle with the cheap(er) bits LITERALLY exceeded that month’s board and farrier for the horse. If I had gone aurigan just the bits themselves would have passed board, and the whole shebang (Ovation bridle, btw) would have passed my mortgage, property taxes, insurance and utilities for my 3BR house for the month.

So getting people to come out involves the additional hurdle of getting them to pay a far greater percentage of their monthly expenses over again than it would for someone who is already used to paying over $1,000 for board and then $100/lesson even for their crap trainer, with a mortgage payment of $1,800. $300 clinic slots are proportionately very different chunks depending on where you are.

So yes, let’s find some upper level riders around here. There’s tons and tons of people who spend the local average mortgage payment on bridles and six months worth of average local board on saddles and also have been repaying their mortgage all over again to their riding instructor every month for the past several years it took to climb up the levels, oh and also keep a horse worth more than the average local house, so they can be available to fill $300 clinic slots. Can’t beat 'em away with a stick.

WHELP, I guess if we want to train the trainers in Buffalo we will have to teach some lower level people too in order to fill a one day clinic. Forget two days, then we really have to break out the beginners.

Cross CHS off the list, then.

[easyrider]

I found Catherine’s blog post a breath of fresh air.

I can see why some riders are offended but I didn’t interpret what she had to say as lack of respect for lower level amateurs but rather lack of respect for some of their instructors. And while she may indeed be “shooting herself in the foot” with her bluntness and proposal, I applaud her willingness to “tell it like it is” or at least how she sees it.

My “take away” is that she feels it’s a shame that the time she spends with any student must be focused on basics that are lacking. I didn’t interpret it as Catherine’s disgust with teaching amateurs or even beginners (she says that her talents are underutilized this way but she gives her all to everyone). Rather, I interpreted it as her disgust with the fact that the basics are missing in the riders she is asked to teach, by instructors who haven’t done their job before she arrives.

She’s not alone in being appalled by the lack of basic training for riders. Steinkraus has an equal lament. So does Denny Emerson. So do lots of instructors whose names aren’t known, most of whom have grey hair.

Foremost among those basics are balance and good hands, as Catherine says. It seems to me that the concepts of good hands and a good seat have been abandoned in deference to “contact” (which has now become the horse’s burden rather than the rider’s) and the wedging of riders’ rear ends into saddles with high cantles and knee blocks the size of Florida. The concept of “educated hands” seems to have been permanently lost.

Of course, you can’t teach what you don’t know. And if trainers have bad hands and no feel, how can they teach good hands to their students? It’s not unusual to audit symposiums and clinics filled with upper level professionals being told by international competitors to “Give! Give! Give!” ad infinitum, day after day. While those clinicians may not complain in public, they certainly do in private. Catherine had the courage to say it out loud, but no one should kid themselves that she’s the only one who feels this way.

And yes, of course, it all boils down to money. We shouldn’t be too hard on the students or keep them from advancing, or they’ll go to another trainer. We should find horses with extraordinary submission so horses never tell riders that they need to fix their seats or hands. We should take students to shows where they can come home with ribbons that make them happy and proud after they’ve banged on their horses’ mouths and backs. And the business of riding horses can go on.

I agree with Catherine about the problem but I don’t think her solution is a great one. Giving lessons to trainers isn’t going to fix the problem. Talented riders are not necessarily good instructors; these are two different skill sets. If she wants to “train the trainers” to teach better and not just ride better, she needs to work with trainers as they instruct, on the ground, instructing them on their instruction rather than on their riding. Now that would be an interesting challenge for Catherine.

[oldernewbie]

I’m going to preface my remarks by saying first of all - I am a dressage duffer. I have ridden all my life but just started with dressage 3 years ago.

However, in my professional life, I am an instructional designer and adult education person.

I have been dismayed by a lot of the teaching I’ve experienced as a dressage rider. There doesn’t seem to be a system involved with it, especially when you ride in a clinic environment. To me, it’s just not enough time to get to the bottom of whatever is wrong and fix it. You get a little bit of symptom fixing and then it’s on to the next person. I found this all very very frustrating until I started riding with someone who did have a system and who I spent more than some clinic sessions with. I also had to acknowledge that I did not have my horse on the bit and to go forward without solving that problem was pointless.

So, I agree with her and don’t find her tone offensive, duffer though I be. I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve watched in clinics who are riding 4th, FEI, you name it, but certainly higher than I ride, and whose horses are not on the bit. Boy do they get offended when the clinician tells them to go back to the basics. Whooo! :eek:

She only hints at the solution and I am not wise enough to present one here, but I do know that it has a lot to do with the ad hoc nature of instructor training here combined with a whole lot of varying opinions about the right way to do something. Makes it really hard on the students and produces highly variable results.

She is totally within her rights to decide on what her niche is and stick to it.

[workin_onit]

In the late '90’s I pounded my back in a clinic with Ms. Haddad. She was neither polite nor professional at that time so can’t imagine much has changed. I was wondering why she had become so popular, true colors coming out now :winkgrin:

[Catherine_Haddad]

TO BE CLEAR

Ladies, Let me be more clear. I AM ONE PERSON. I cannot train the entire base of beginners in this country although from those I see in clinics, I think that I should. The basics are not being emphasized and not being taught as they should be in the USA. Otherwise, all of the beginning level riders who show up in my clinics would be able to sit the trot, create decent contact, turn right and left, stop and go.

Since I cannot train them all, SEND ME THEIR TRAINERS, I DO NOT CARE HOW ADVANCED THEY ARE. IF THEY ARE TEACHING, THEY SHOULD BE LEARNING. All trainers need to learn good basics and teach good basics. Let me be helpful to them. I cannot teach any more than I am already teaching. I cannot put any more energy or passion into making people learn. So send me the riders who will teach other riders and my skills and time will be put to the best use.

How many of you critics know how to give a proper longe lesson to teach correct sitting? How many of you can correct a contact problem? Clearly, not enough!

Ask yourself, “If I can improve my own riding and teaching skills, will it help advance the sport of dressage in the USA?” If the answer is yes, call me.

[Crockpot]

Ladies, Let me be more clear. I AM ONE PERSON.

Thanks for the clarification.:winkgrin:

Serious question. Is there some reason why you can’t just specify to organizers the level of riders/trainers that you want in your clinics? Seems to be a simple enough solution.

[meupatdoes]

[QUOTE=Catherine Haddad;7103124]

Since I cannot train them all, SEND ME THEIR TRAINERS, I DO NOT CARE HOW ADVANCED THEY ARE. IF THEY ARE TEACHING, THEY SHOULD BE LEARNING.[/QUOTE]

I am teaching, and I make herculean efforts to continue learning.
I do a lot of this learning at the clinics the local dressage community is able to arrange when they bring clinicians in. It would be impossible to fill clinics in this area with upper level riders so the clinics are a mix of people which does include those who cannot sit or create decent contact. We do get international calibre people in to farms that are within a 45 minute drive -and yes, they teach the gamut-, but believe me, I show up.

I live a 9 hour trailer ride away from your summer base, and you won’t want to come to us because our overall clinic population is inferior (the old, trainer brings someone in and then watches you teach their lower level amateurs and so on).
So who is going to be doing this “sending me?”

If someone “sends me,” I’ll certainly go.

[mountainhorse]

[QUOTE=Lucassb;7102271]

Of course, I get that not everyone wants to be a great teacher. Some people just want to coach those upper level folks on very advanced horses, and obviously that is their right. But, as Eclectic Horseman wisely notes… those folks may find that that economic reality makes that a difficult approach to implement on any scale. It’s been my experience that most trainers have to have considerable financial support from their clients (and the clients of their fellow trainers) if they want to bring in a BNT trainer for a clinic opportunity. The great majority simply don’t have enough owners/sponsors to fly someone in just to train them individually.[/QUOTE]

Like someone else said, “What’s really at issue is a failure on the part of instructors to thoroughly instil basic equitation skills, and yes, that should be addressed through Train-the-Trainers programmes.”

and…

“I agree with Catherine about the problem but I don’t think her solution is a great one. Giving lessons to trainers isn’t going to fix the problem. Talented riders are not necessarily good instructors; these are two different skill sets. If she wants to “train the trainers” to teach better and not just ride better, she needs to work with trainers as they instruct, on the ground, instructing them on their instruction rather than on their riding. Now that would be an interesting challenge for Catherine.”

Since it’s already been said,…

[staceyk]

[QUOTE=suzy;7102472]
This is what you have inferred from her blog, not what she is saying. [/QUOTE]

And if you feel I’m dissing her that is YOUR inference. I don’t feel one way or the other about Haddad, and read the article with an open mind.

[SnicklefritzG]

I agree with some of what Catherine said in the article, as in riders needing to have better basics. However, she could have made her point without all the bravado.

[Crockpot]

Since I cannot train them all, SEND ME THEIR TRAINERS, I DO NOT CARE HOW ADVANCED THEY ARE. IF THEY ARE TEACHING, THEY SHOULD BE LEARNING. All trainers need to learn good basics and teach good basics.

yes of course and everyone knows that but that’s a bit like telling STARVING PEOPLE they must EAT MORE.

It assumes a lot. maybe they need to pay the mortgage first.

edited to add caps since CH likes those a lot.

[Angelico]

Sounds like CHS simply doesn’t understand the trials of riders that don’t live in select parts of the northeast and Florida face. No point arguing with someone that doesn’t understand how trainer/student relationships work when we live hours away. Maybe we would show up to clinics better prepared if we all had easy access to quality instruction.

[Crockpot]

It has started some discussion so that is good.