Emerging Athletes Program? Your Experience?

[Rel6]

Yes, its absolutely damned if you do/damned if you don’t. At the end of the day, they’re too unpredictable to say how (or if!) it will affect my riding and if I can’t, then I certainly don’t expect anyone else to! So I just would prefer not to say anything rather than have it look like an excuse.

As @trubandloki and @MsJump21 also mentioned, I would expect to be called out for effectively going off course. I just wouldn’t expect it to be handled as harshly as it was considering the environment.

[Puffergrrl]

In fairness, none of the clinicians mentioned here is new to the job. Research who you’re riding with before you go. If you don’t like the sound of it and it doesn’t jive with what you want out of your riding, don’t go. I know someone who rode with Anne Kursinski regularly and I wouldn’t have said she’s known for her softer side. I also used to clinic with Karen Healy a few times a year and distinctly remember her yelling “Carve him up!” at me when I had a dirty stopper. And people paid huge bucks to be publicly humiliated by George Morris.
As I recall, USHJA has been really good about announcing their clinicians pretty far in advance, so you’re probably not going to deny anyone a chance and leave an empty spot if you cancel.

Also, I know clinics are supposed to be fair and all, but just like some trainers at home…some clinicians find it more entertaining to work with more advanced riders and horses, because they can do more and they’re not great about hiding their preference. And when it’s for a USHJA program targeted at EMERGING athletes, they may even feel it’s more appropriate to focus on riders they think are closer to going to medal finals and/or being on junior/YR nations cup teams. It’s not fair, but you can’t help that. What you can do, is watch the other sessions (and other lessons at home) and learn as much as possible.