We don’t always get closure, it sounds like you want some closure and acknowledgement and unfortunately it doesn’t always happen. Just move on, focus on your new situation.
I will say it is a bit awkward to go to her barn to ride one of her clients’ horses when you have decided to leave and ride elsewhere- I don’t know about anyone else, but not sure how that would fly other places?
No, he’s basically retired. Owner is on maternity leave. But owner is also a longtime friend of Trainer.
I would not think much of it, but understand your concern since it sounds like there has been a shift in level of communication.
Continue to ride the boarder-horse and don’t make a big fuss about the absence of communication.
Realize those opportunities may not be permanently available to you, if you are no longer the trainer’s client.
Go to your new trainer with fresh perspective that maybe, it was time for you to move on – but don’t speak negatively of your old trainer to anyone ever.
The cancelling lesson, and then not following up with “we can reschedule/do another time” makes me think perhaps this trainer is trimming her clientele – you, specifically.
Generally if you are not offered a date to reschedule, I think it’s a pretty strong sign that the trainer does not want your income – for whatever reason. Could be related to something benign like time restraints, or being busy and needing to cut down on hours; could be something else related or unrelated to you. Who knows!
Sometimes, people are not all together that observant to the signs either and can be surprised and think something is “out of the blue” when it’s been a long time coming.
One thing I have experienced more than a few times is that non-boarder clients, like yourself or those that truck in, often are not as valuable to a trainer as their boarder clients…
So they are often the first to go, or be shuttled around, cancelled on, or told to lesson elsewhere – because the trainer needs to prioritize on their more financially productive clients. It’s not personal most of the time, it’s business – but I get why people get hurt in these scenarios especially when it’s been a friend/support dynamic as well as coach. I’ve been there myself with a long-term trainer who gradually had less and less time for me; I just wish I had not kept giving the trainer excuses, but that is a story for another thread. :yes:
Trainer put me in contact with owner (they’re friends) but owner and I schedule rides. There are multiple boarders who are not lesson clients.
Then I would just send a group text to both the owner of the horse and the trainer to make sure everyone is on the same page. Something like “hey…just checking in to make sure it’s still ok for me to come out and hack (horse), since I haven’t heard back from (trainer) since our last text about lessons. My plan is to come out on x day but if we’re not all on the same page about this, no hard feelings.”
If you still don’t get a response (from either of them), that’s an answer. If just the owner answers you, proceed as planned. If the trainer makes it awkward while you’re there riding, you’ll have to decide if you want to subject yourself to that ongoing. Some horse people can be weird. Or, she may just let you carry on and be cordial, in which case, enjoy your free ride! Don’t burn the bridge either way. Life is short and memories are long.
This is very important information that was missing from your original post.
You haven’t had a wonderful friendly supportive close relationship with this trainer. You have always been on call to ride her horse or not as her schedule fit, and it sounds like you were always probably chasing her for times and dates. So actually nothing has really changed, she’s just faded out for good.
In the past I am sure you went to ride the other horse even when the trainer had left you hanging about riding her horse.
This trainer has had a year to show you that she is scattered, disorganized, and doesn’t care about your time or schedule. Indeed, as you say elsewhere in this thread, that is why you are moving on to another barn. I’m not sure why, now that you are moving, you suddenly want some kind of affirmation from her. It sounds like if she wanted to lose a client, she’d just stop texting them. No, not entirely professional. But on the scale of things that can go wrong in the trainer/client relationship (and were you actually a client or cadging freebie rides on her horse?), it is very very mild. And horse people are not particularly professional in these ways. Get used to it.
So it’s been obvious for the last year that She Just Isn’t That Into You. So what? You want a declaration of love or a huge explosive attack when you officially break up with her? What were you expecting? Slow fade out allowing both parties to remain friendly in person is not at all a bad ending.
Go ride your horse.
I certainly wasn’t looking for a blow out. Not sure where you got that impression. I’m more concerned about the etiquette of riding at the barn of a trainer you’ve stopped working with whose lack of communication makes me unsure of how she would feel about it.
I realize there has been a pattern with her of apparent disorganization and poor time management. I just didn’t originally think it was relevant to my original question about showing up to hack after the “breaking up” had happened.
I don’t know why others are piling on you, OP! I’d feel weird if I was in that situation, too. In fact, I have been in a similar situation, years ago before I had my own horse again, and it IS weird. I concluded that the trainer didn’t particularly want a horseless rider with not a lot of money, other than as a crash test dummy on their more sketchy sales horses, so I took my time and crash test dummy skills elsewhere. It was a great decision, but it was difficult at the time.
It doesn’t matter how many times someone says you should treat the trainer-rider relationship as purely business, it is often a blurry line. I think this may be due to the very personal nature of riding and horses, but regardless I’ve always had friendships with my trainers and that is part of my enjoyment of riding. I’ve been at barns where things were very businesslike and it wasn’t much fun.
At any rate- OP, as I’m sure you have realized, it’s probably a good thing you are moving to a new trainer. If you feel weird about going back to your old barn to ride the other horse, perhaps you should let the owner know and then have done with it altogether. Good luck with the new trainer!
OP you’re nuking this. Let it go. If you want to hack the horse, hack the horse. If it will be awkward for you than don’t. Move on.
When did you give the trainer and opportunity to be supportive and helpful? In the text when you said you were changing trainers?
Listen, trainers are busy. You told her you’re moving on. You didn’t schedule a meeting to discuss it with her or ask for help with the transition. You texted her and told her you were done. And she is now likely worrying about all of her current clients, of which you aren’t anymore.
Would it have been nice for her to respond with a “No problem, best of luck to you”? Sure. But unless you were besties and she’s suddenly ghosting you, I think you’re way overly concerned with this. If she has personal issues or illness, I’m sure she has plenty of friends and family around her and doesn’t need to tell you what is going on - especially now that you aren’t riding with her. Stop worrying so much about her well being and leave that to her friends and just be professional.
I’m not sure why, but this sport just gets so exhausting with all the expectations placed on trainers. Treat her like your karate teacher and stop overanalyzing this so much. Oftentimes the only minute I had to even catchup on responding to the millions of texts was sitting on the toilet!
If you’re concerned about things being awkward hacking the horse, then just text the trainer and say “Hey just wanted to let you know i’ll be out on Thursday to hack Hank” and put the ball in HER court to tell you she has a problem with it. And if you don’t hear back, go ride the horse. Alternatively you could check in with the owner but honestly this just creates drama where there should be none.
Can you pick up the phone and call both parties involved and get it straight that way? Texting is great when the conversation is causal/ straightforward but can often complicated things when they are not.
I would thank her. Thank her for what she has done for you. Then ask is it still okay if you come hack the horse, just in case other arrangements have been made.
Generally- if you’ve been to the barn to ride and trainer is aware, and you have let her know- if you haven’t been told “DON’T COME BACK”, just go and hack the horse until you hear otherwise.
Personally- I like face-to-face “Hey- it’s OK if I still come and hack Dobbin?” . She obviously had an easy out of saying “No” when you texted her.
That said- I know texting is where we are in life. I still prefer doing things in person or at least FOLLOWING UP in person. So much is lost in translation or people don’t want to text certain things or hell- texts get lost or deleted or missed.
Trainer being friends with the other horse owner isn’t a negative, necessarily. Maybe HO doesn’t have the time or if you are hacking the horse HO can lesson on others. Win/Win.
Jesus. Do the former. Just ignore the lack of communication and the various motives that could behind it. Those are not your business. It could be that the pro is busy. It could be that the pro is moving on to current clients. It could be that the pro is actually pissed. But until she Uses Her Words, you aren’t obligated to do anything. If you do the latter-- guess that she’s being indirect and so you communicate back in an indirect way, you reward and participate in this unprofessional behavior.
I think the only ways to meet with passive-aggressive behavior are to ignore either one side of the other.
My personal favorite is to acknowledge the aggressive part and offer to meet them out in the parking lot to settle what they actually started, LOL. I really had passive-aggressive stuff. It’s a failing of mine.
Act on the “passive” side of things and ignore their passivity. That was the above strategy. Keep doing your thing until you actually hear otherwise.
Of course the other thing about being in an adult, professional-style relationship is that you pursue your own interest. So, bottom line, do you want to hack the hose or not? if you do, do. If you don’t, you can tell the owner, thank the owner for the opportunity, explain nothing, say nothing about the trainer and walk.
What are the odds that the trainer found out through the grapevine that OP was exploring other options for lessons, and decided it wasn’t worth trying to keep her business?
The horse world is small, and people talk.
You are ending a business relationship. You just fired her. While graciousness would have been nice, I think it is expecting too much. That’s really not fair to expect anything but “moving on to paying clients” from someone who just fired a body."
There you go.
Tell the owner you don’t ride with her trainer anymore. Does she still want you to come hack the horse? I’d leave it at that. The horse’s owner is the person who gets to grant permission or rescind it. Let the owner figure out if the trainer allows it. If you want to ask, ask the owner if it’s still ok with her pro for you to come.
I think the OP told the trainer she was going elsewhere. That’s when the pro lowered the veil of complete radio silence.
That may be when the trainer officially decided she was done communicating. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the trainer had heard elsewhere that OP was asking around about other options, since she seems to have somebody already lined up to switch to … and I think the trainer may have decided to just cut her losses, and maybe that’s why she hadn’t replied even before OP said she was moving barns.
I second @mvp . This is between you and the owner. Just text the owner with your concerns. If they’re cool with you still hacking for them, then hack. If they’re like “Well, I don’t know how Trainer would feel about that. It would probably be best if our arrangement ended” then don’t hack.
And i wouldn’t worry about the Trainer not replying. Most likely, they just have busy days where replying to texts regarding an ending business relationship isn’t at the top of the To Do list. That was a weird experience when that first happened to me. I had always been close to my instructors, but that’s a bonus , something certainly not guaranteed just because you write a check.
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