Good and bad experiences finding trainers / board / services, etc, in your area? Tips for the search?

[danhelm441]

@Rel6

Having left a bad experience a few barns back, its so easy to recognize the red flags even in the social media presence: extreme focus on how high students are jumping in social media posts, major emphasis on trainer’s riding achievements at shows with little to no focus on student’s achievements, and one or two main clients dominating the entire business.

This is good, because I have a different list of red flags from my experience, but I could easily see myself missing these in an effort to over-correct for the direction I went last time. My red flags would be a trainer who believes their training approach is new, special, and unique, who is quick to dismiss certain training techniques or certain tack as abusive without caveats, who doesn’t show or hunt, doesn’t trailer the horses out anywhere, doesn’t own a trailer, expresses skepticism about the vet’s recommendations (prefers to work with the chiro), diehard advocate for expensive supplements with so-so evidence, never sends video of training sessions, and all the horses—even long-term clients’ horses—have weird behavioral quirks and limitations, things like can’t be cross tied, can’t be ridden above a walk, can’t be ridden at all, none of which matters or is especially apparent because there’s no competition schedule or field trips to hunter paces, clinics, or anything outside the 20-acre “bubble.”

I could easily picture myself browsing the social media page of someone bragging about jump height and competition results, and lighting up thinking, “At least they compete!”

[trubandloki]

@Halternatively

trainer results on social media is a no

Trainer results do not bother me at all. A trainer who is, well training and that includes showing, is not a bad thing. A post that is “so proud of Dobbin at his first show, not only did he act like an old pro but we managed to get a second in a large hack class” post is not a bad thing.

I think client posts are kind of a good and bad on both sides. Some clients do not want their information out there that way. I do like the barns who post how proud they are of their clients and find something great to say about everyone, even that person who did not get the best ribbons.

[BeeHoney]

Reviewing other people’s reviews is a good place to start because it can help weed out some obvious “nos” or simply be informative about the style or focus of a place. However, I totally agree with others that there are a lot of charismatic trainers out there who are popular but not necessarily good trainers. Honestly I avoid these charismatic trainers because so often the charisma covers up problems. Also–look at a trainer’s resume and show record. What is their personal show experience? What is their background? Who have they trained with? What horses have they produced?

There are a lot of trainers out there with very shallow resumes who rely on advertising/social media to create an image that doesn’t reflect reality. Also, there are “trainers” out there with lovely facilities and big show records–but all achieved because they had or have a wealthy backer (generally parents) who paid for expensive, well-trained horses + another trainer who prepped the horse and held everything together, and then down the road bought a fancy facility where their child could be a successful “trainer.” Unfortunately the best trainers are people who have ridden a wider variety of less perfect horses under more taxing circumstances and who also have by necessity been very hands on cleaning stalls, doing layups, grooming horses, etc. and who thus have a much better understanding of barn management.

IMO, the best trainers often keep a lower personal profile. They aren’t looking for clients who want charisma and their egos fluffed and puffed. They know that horses are humbling and that success takes consistency and hard work and that there is a lot of background stuff that needs to be faithfully executed for a horse and rider to reach their full potential. They want no nonsense, reasonable clients that understand the costs, commitment and risks.

I like to evaluate trainers at shows in the warmup ring and ring side. In the warmup ring, these trainers aren’t giving loud lessons, instead their clients are prepared and they are doing a focused warmup. After a round, the trainer has some appropriate feedback and some corrections for the next class.

Another great thing to do is to go to a barn and watch some lessons and listen to the teaching. Is there a plan? How does the trainer respond to problems? Also a chance to scope out how the horses are cared for and what the quality of the hay is.

Ultimately you need to trust your own judgement. And–it’s fine to try out different trainers and need to move. Sometimes there are things you can’t know until you are actually at a barn.

[Jackie_Cochran]

I know this is not applicable for everyone since I am so much into Arabian horses.

IF a stable has Arabian horses I notice them. Often the Arabian will come up/look at me significantly/ or otherwise indicate that they need me to GET THEM OUT OF THERE!

The stable where I take lessons now, she had 6 Arabians at her barn, including the wonderful gelding she put me on. NONE of the Arabians came up to me to beg me to take them away from there. After my first lesson my husband sort of sighed and asked me if we would have to rescue the horse I rode and I told him no, that Arabian gelding really liked that barn and did not ask me to rescue him.

Otherwise I note the cleanliness of the stalls, the demeanor of the horses especially when I come up close and personal, the weight of the horses (overweight is bad as is underweight) and the status of their hooves.

As for training &/or lessons, well if the horses I see ridden there are all behind the vertical I am out of there like a bat out of hell. If the nosebands are tight I am not impressed at all. If the teacher blames the patient school horse for a rider’s inability to control him I leave. Under saddle I want to see horses confidently striding forward to meet the world, reaching for contact willingly, accepting contact peaceably, and being patient with riders who don’t know much at all. That patience is important, it reflects the horse’s confidence in the riding teacher’s ability to teach the student rider how not to abuse the horse. If the horse is not confident of its trainer or the riding teacher there is often something lacking in the trainer’s/instructor’s knowledge base and their own training.

My present lesson stable is not “perfect” but the horses are willing to live there and patient enough to teach beginning riders for decades (literally, one of her best beginner’s horses died at 38 after being retired a month or two earlier). The students who own their own horses (mostly children/girls) are quite capable of riding them without their hand being held. The horses are not abused, the kids are having fun, all stalls are cleaned daily, the hooves are trimmed regularly, and the veterinarian is called whenever something is wrong with a horse.

And my riding teacher/BO values all the horses there highly, whether the horse cost tens of thousands of dollars or a horse that was “dumped” at the stable because its rider over-horsed herself. She has a few old, old, old lesson horses enjoying their retirement, she says that those horses owe her nothing and that she owes them a lot.

If I was a horse I’d like to end up at a stable like my lesson stable.

[Rel6]

For sure mine weren’t an exhaustive list, just the ones visible from a quick peak at a social media page!

I definitely share some of your others as well - especially skepticism/disregard for vet advice (this was what finally prompted me to leave). For me, not showing or hunting or going to anything off-property would be less of a red flag and more that it isn’t the right for for me personally. Whereas ignoring vet advice, horses feet looking bad, terrible turnout conditions, etc etc are just things I cannot imagine anyone should be okay with!

[Rel6]

Trainer results aren’t an automatic no for me either. The red flag for me are trainers who wax poetic about their own results, and then post client accomplishments as a clear afterthought.

For example: a social media post from a show with 6 photos of trainer on various horses, 1 photo at the end with all clients, a long caption listing all accomplishments/results of trainer, then a quick sentence at the end with how the clients did.

Compared to: a social media post from a show with 2 photos of trainer on various horses, 5 photos of clients on their own horses, and caption congratulating/listing accomplishments of trainer in a sentence and then a sentence for each of her clients.

Both rough examples from two local barns I saw at the same show recently. The first is a barn where the trainer’s riding/results are always the focus of the show and the main priority and clients will come second. The second is a barn where trainer does her job as a pro putting nice rides on horses and then switches focus to helping clients succeed. Although I know this firsthand, I also see it reflected so obviously in the social media too.

[danhelm441]

@Rel6

For me, not showing or hunting or going to anything off-property would be less of a red flag and more that it isn’t the right for for me personally. Whereas ignoring vet advice, horses feet looking bad, terrible turnout conditions, etc etc are just things I cannot imagine anyone should be okay with!

I didn’t see it as a red flag either at first, especially not for a trainer specializing in restarting problem horses. But I can see now it contributed to a crappy learning environment for horses. First, if you have any recreational goals at all—whether that’s showing or trail riding, or even just making your horse a well-rounded good citizen, confident in new places, with solid loading and trailering skills—a training program where the horse never leaves the property is going to leave a big hole in the horse’s training.

Second, there’s no frame of reference outside what the trainer thinks is normal. It’s isolating. You’re not working to any big goals, neither are your peers, you’re all just like monks in a rogue monastery with no connection to “Rome.” And it takes actual measurable skills to habituate horses to things like body clipping and braiding for a show, loading and unloading, standing tied at the trailer, staying sane in a new venue, calmly w/t/c around unfamiliar horses. It’s pass/fail. Is the horse prepared to do it, or is the horse not prepared to do it? No schedule of events just makes it very easy for a trainer to skate by with vague goals, good and bad days, no structure or measures for progress.

[Halternatively]

I agree, and I did not state my red flag well. I was thinking of the trainer who posts selfies, videos of herself and her results then as an aside, a “good job team”. I know of a few of these, and I’m always sad for the kids who are left out of the barn’s posts.

To your point, especially with sale horses, there’s room for trainers posting their results. I think if you’re looking for a barn and evaluating social media, the difference in these two examples will be pretty obvious.

[hut-ho78]

I look first at the horses to see if they look healthy, happy, calm, trusting, and greet new people with welcoming soft eyes, second at facility safety and maintenance, and third at people riding or taking lessons.

If I’m volunteering at shows then I also watch trainers with volunteers and clients as well. The warmup rings are a great place to learn about trainers.

I hunt up old barn buddies and ask around.

[Impractical_Horsewoman]

As someone with no competitive goals herself, I agree with this 1,000%. All of the best instructors I’ve had competed or had students actively competing. If nothing else, having outside eyes on the horses in the program from time to time can be an important reality check. Otherwise, it’s so easy for the instructor to say something like, “see how much better the horses is moving,” at the end of a session (which is often true, just because the horse knows the lesson or time is at an end), even though there isn’t progress. It’s also easy for things like, say, working with a horse who has trouble with trailering or dealing with certain stimuli, to be put on the back burner until it’s been YEARS since the horse left the property, which makes getting that knowledge instilled all the more difficult.

[meupatdoes]

I used to be a professional rider and am now a landlord who manages my own properties. Finding and maintaining relationships with good vendors is, without a doubt, one of if not THE most important part of my day to day existence. Probably THE, squared. In my experience, the following are essential:

1. Good boundaries and communication. I was going to list this as two separate things but they really go hand in hand. You can’t be one of those people who is afraid of a frank and courteous conversation about your expectations and your standards. All of those “omg, my farrier/barnowner/vet did XYZ, what do I do what do I do” threads - what EVERY. SINGLE. one of those threads calls for is a frank and courteous conversation directly with the vendor/professional at hand. “I’m conflict averse” (not sayong OP said this, just in general) is just another way of saying “I don’t have all the boundaries and communication skills yet that I need to handle these situations,” but the good news is they are learnable skills, not inherent characteristics. You can’t learn how to be 6’ tall but you can learn boundaries and communication skills. It is triply important to have these skills as a horse owner, because as a horse owner you need to advocate not only for yourself but also for your horse who can NOT communicate for themselves.
   Some of the things that I have boundaries/standards for no matter who I’m dealing with are
2. communication. How does this person talk to me? Are they polite? Are they respectful? Are they timely in their responses? I don’t have time for people who consistently don’t respond to texts within 24 hours. A corrolary to this is that in most scenarios, how something is handled is more important than what happened. A big mistake that someone acknowledges, apologizes for, and uses actions (not words) to try to make it right in the best way they can is usually forgiveable, even if it was a really big mistake. A much more minor problem can end a business or personal relationship if handled poorly. (Take note, people who can’t apologize!)
3. CONSISTENCY IN WORD AND DEED. if someone doesn’t do what they say they are going to do more than once or twice (or at exceedingly rare intervals where they have plenty of time to build up their “good deeds” bank account to draw against with the occasional f up), I stop doing business with them.

Note that I haven’t once mentioned a horse or what other people think about a person. This is because these are universal standards for me regardless of what industry we are talking about or what other people think. Other people can provide recommendations, but you have to make your evaluations yourself. In one real life situation, everyone else in the barn mysteriously loved the new trainer who bitted up the horses and then stood in the middle saying “Your horse has a mack truck in its mouth, just let the bit do the talking.” I refused to ride with her after one lesson. One of my clients wanted to take lessons with her on a horse that I co-owned with her. I told her, “You can obviously do whatever you want with your other horses but you are going to have to buy me out of this horse before you take him in a lesson with her, because no horse that I own even one hair of is going in a lesson with that trainer. I have no problems with you lessoning with other people and there’s 17 of them where I will drive the trailer to get you there but that one is a hard no, so if you still want to take this lesson write me a check for half the horse and he’s yours to do as you please.” (When I say direct communication about standards and boundaries, I really do mean direct.)
So, yes, always, always, always seek out recommendations, but if the person falls short of your expectations, act accordingly. Your job as a horse owner is not to be psychic and know what is going to happen before it does. Rather, it is to maintain your boundaries and your standards and act promptly and effectively when something falls short of your expectations.

The second part to building and maintaining good relationships with vendors is how YOU act. Always remember they are evaluating you just as much as you are evaluating them. The best ones will have several other people who also want to do business with them. Once you’ve found a vendor you like, it’s your job as a long term steward of your horse to make yourself their favorite client. Be the one whose texts they want to answer. My rules for myself are:

1. Don’t be a cheapskate. Boundaries and communication about standards does not mean you can show up to a ramshackle place with shitty fencing and skinny horses and communicate your standards to the point YOUR horse gets good fencing and free choice hay.
2. Be consistent in your word and deed. Let’s say you have plans to go to a clinic for $200 a ride (2 rides) and have hired a trailer to get you there and back for $100. You get to the barn at 6am to meet the trailer at 7 and your horse is lame.
   Guess what, you still owe the clinic $400 and you still owe the trailer $100. (You also have a vet bill coming up imminently. Aren’t horses great?) This is one of the fundamental things people need to understand to be good clients and to maintain good relationships with vendors and professionals. The clinic organizer does not need to be $400 short toward paying the clinician’s airfare because your horse went lame. The trailer driver probably turned away other jobs after committing to yours and they still need to be paid for that time slot. Understand this and live by it, even when it really, truly sucks.
   Real life example: I texted one of my general contractors about a sewage backup in one of my basements and he agreed to go out on an emergency basis at 7:30am the next morning to see if he could address it before his other jobs that day. At 8:30 he texted he had tried to fix it but his snake wasn’t long enough, and recommended to call in the big guns plumber. I said, thanks, how much do I owe you. He said nothing, as he wasn’t able to fix the problem. I said, nonsense, you still answered the call and made time on an emergency basis at 7:30 in the morning so I am sending you $100. Boom, venmoed, the end.
   You want to know who can get a plumber out immediately when its 45 minutes before the super bowl? This girl.

It’s important to be your vendors’ best client because in horses, as in landlording, vendors make your world go round. If you do not have a good farrier you do not have a horse. The vendor pool is not infinite and you need to maintain excellent relationships with the good ones and scrupulously fulfill your responsibility to be a good client, so that you can freely tell the bad apples to take a hike.

OP, you seem like you are very much on the right track. You were able to identify that a particular trainer was no good even in the face of several people recommending them.
You hired (and paid for) a wedding planner and see the value in doing so, so you’re clearly not someone who is a cheapskate at all costs.

And remember: the standard here isn’t for you to be psychic. A lot of network building is trial and error. How do you know if someone is happy to take your money and do a terrible job? Really, only once they start doing a terrible job. That’s their fault, not yours. It doesn’t mean you messed up, it just means you don’t hire them again and need to keep looking for the next one until you find someone who does a great job.

Once you do, be their best client.

[danhelm441]

“I’m conflict averse” (not sayong OP said this, just in general) is just another way of saying “I don’t have all the boundaries and communication skills yet that I need to handle these situations,” but the good news is they are learnable skills, not inherent characteristics.

Didn’t say it, but it’s true. Just like public speaking or driving in a dense metropolitan area, having “hard conversations” is way more intimidating than it needs to be, until and/or unless it’s something you do routinely. And I don’t have those conversations routinely

Great point about not being cheap, although it’s a privilege to be able to take that advice. One of the crappiest aspects of living on a shoestring budget is how often you end up alienating people or missing out because you’re trying to save a buck.

[TheBigEasy]

Oh my goodness. I’d like to print this and hand it out to people. So much truth.
A barn lives or dies on its vendors. Pretty much every business does also.
Being a great customer can make life sooo much easier.

Mother of a young girl burned our regular saddle fitter. We’re in a saddle-fitter-desert. cause mom didn’t think she should have to pay when the fitter evaluated the saddle (fixed tree, foam panels) and said “no adjustments can be made to this saddle to fix the issue - that’ll be $50”.

Young girl can’t get her saddle corrected over a $50 dispute, and can’t get another fitter to come without a large farm-call fee since everyone uses the first fitter.

Being a bad customer costs too much time, money, and effort in the long run.

[CanteringCarrot]

@paw

And even if you do find that the barn you’ve chosen doesn’t fit your needs, that’s ok - just use it as a base while you keep looking (assuming the care isn’t substandard). Especially when coming into a new area cold, be prepared to expect that you might not have found the best barn for you at first.

This has been quite true for me. I’ve often moved out of state and/or out of the country and gone into new areas completely blind. Nowadays you can snoop on the web a bit, but still. I usually land at a barn that’s ok, doable, not terrible, but end up finding something better within a year or less. I’ve always left the first barn(s) on good terms. No issues. It’s so hard moving a big distance and not knowing anyone. I just try my best all while knowing that I may not nail it the first time, and that’s fine.

I’m about to do this again, and have found a place that’s the best fit in the area, from what I can tell from afar (very afar). It’ll definitely be a good starting point and my horse will likely be alright there. I can also quietly keep my eyes open for something else while I get to know the area. I am also willing to put my training on hold in favor of better care. If a barn provides top care but doesn’t have a trainer for my chosen discipline (but I can still trailer out and do as I please) I’ll take it over a good trainer with questionable care.

I generally speak with the owner to get a feel for things, and look through photos and reviews. If there is a relevant FB group then I’ll post something and also add in that anyone can PM me as well. I’ve already managed to get in contact with 2 people in my new area, and their input has been useful.

It is stressful establishing a new team of vet, farrier, saddle fitter, and whatnot. I just make sure to have my horse trimmed/shod, UTD on all vaccines, teeth, and chiro, and saddle checked right before I leave. Gives me a bit of time to find new service providers.

[MapleBreeze]

Is the trainer effective?
Is the horse making progress?
Is the horse regressing?
Is the horse healthy and happy?
Do you get along and is it your happy place ?
Then eff all those other details, it’s really that simple.

Do you feel weekly progress?

[Baybear]

I know that a lot of folks post on forums or social media and that’s a good way to get a number of barn names tossed out. However, many people dont read the location very well and will toss out places that are not in the geographic area. if there’s a tack shop, they can often be good resources, but bear in mind they need to be diplomatic but can at least let you know that the barn you oogled at on your way to the store is a dressage barn not HJ etc. Check out their website and/or social media. I think photos can say alot about a place too. Looking for an adult barn and the social media page is full of kids birthday parties may or may not interest you. Also a fan of going to a local show or nearby rated show and parking at the schooling area, follow some of the trainers/horses you liked to the ring. It’s pretty much doing a lot of homework