Is it normal to feel negative every time you go to the barn (from the people, not horses)? I keep my horses at home now, but I am very connected with a barn/trainer who I’ve known and worked with for years. We all live near a big show venue, very close to each other. I had this problem with this group even when my horses lived at that farm. I actually thought it would make it better having some space from them, but it hasn’t. It’s worse.
I finally had what I would consider to be my breaking point last week. I am thinking of working with a different barn since I feel depressed every time I go over there. I actually enjoy the clients, but there aren’t many of them and it’s not enough to make up for the negativity.
Btw, I do this for my horses, not the people, but the negativity greatly impacts my ability to get anything other than feeling agitated and depressed from this program. If I thought my horses or my riding was benefiting, I would just suck it up. I put in so much time and effort to keep my horses happy and well schooled that it really gets me down to feel so unhappy and isolated anytime I’m around this group. The issues I’m having are outside of performance issues- more from a human level. Trying to avoid specifics but can provide if helpful.
Anyone have success stories about life after leaving a toxic, unfriendly barn? I think I found a group where the trainer enjoys teaching and has a fun group of clients and staff that seem to support one another. I know it will be really offensive to the current trainer if I start using another trainer, and I have a lot of guilt about it. I am hoping to find some more joy at the barn and gain more positive experiences with my horses.
The fact you are locked in feeling guilty is a good example of being stuck in a (somewhat) abusive situation.
I agree the specifics you are giving don’t totally line up, but this doesn’t matter.
If you aren’t happy, vote with your feet (and hooves) and go to the other program. I would go take some lessons there first to be sure.
That said, no trailer in client will feel part of the barn team in the same way as a boarder, so don’t expect that.
Calculate in that the new trainer will love bomb you until you are committed, then you will just be another trailer in client
Finally sit quietly with yourself and analyze every step of what happened at the last barn to make you feel so awful. Don’t share this with us. But be totally honest with yourself.
Did you get on someone’s wrong side early on without knowing it? Or are you just an introverted person who is slow to join a group? What did you hope to get out of that barn and was it really possible? Then, the most important thing: how can you make sure that doesn’t happen again?
Remember horses seem to bring out the inner middle school girl in many otherwise accomplished and mature adult women. We get around horses and trainers, we end up acting like 11 year old girls in both good and bad ways.
The bad ways are all the hurt feelings over trivia, self centered chattering, generalized envy of everyone else, the desire for 25 different LeMieux pads and matchy sets , competition for trainer attention, leaving passive aggressive notes about trivia, trying to shame people into conformity, materialistic status competition, and formless social anxiety.
You could be reacting like this or forced to deal with 45 year old middle school girls or be in a barn where the main tendencies of the social life are like this and if you don’t participate in the gossip and anxiety you don’t fit in.
As a person with your own farm, you are so lucky to be able to just stop attending one barn and join another. But be sure you go to the new barn secure in your feeling of being an independent adult that just needs some help. Don’t go expecting that the popular girls will invite you to the slumber party or whatever.
And let go of the guilt. No explanation needed. You just found a program that fits your current needs better.
The only person whose behavior you can control is your own. Try to treat this as the business decision that it is.
Tell the trainer that you have found a program that you are excited to try and thank them for their instruction in the past. That’s it. Period.
If the trainer reacts poorly to your decision, they are unprofessional and there’s nothing you can do about that. Don’t let the conversation become personal and don’t bad mouth the trainer when you leave. “I’d like to try a different program” is all you need to say and repeat as necessary.
I moved my horse to a barn that turned out to be just awful. Drama like I’ve never experienced, and a very toxic management environment. I actually liked the couple of lessons I had with the barn owner/trainer, but she turned out to be the main source of the drama and toxicity. I had knots in my stomach every day as I turned up the drive to the barn. The feed program was awful, and within a month my horse had ulcers. I left inside of two months, moving to a place just a few minutes farther away, and feel like I lucked into horse heaven and a great young trainer, to boot.
I couldn’t care less what the BO/trainer at the place I left thinks of me, and I don’t spend any time thinking about her. My horse (after expensive ulcer treatment) is the picture of health, there is zero drama, the boarders are the nicest group you can imagine, and the barn manager is educated, helpful, and calm.
The barn should be your happy place. You should not be depressed or anxious when you’re there. Move, and don’t look back.
ETA I’ve been at the “new” place for more than 18 months now. It’s still great.
Yeah, that’s how current trainer is keeping you, they abuse, apologize and make you feel like you’re the bad one.
Go directly to new barn, do not stop to apologize to old trainer or go to that barn, just get a lesson scheduled with new trainer and go take lesson.
Unless you left gear at the old place, there’s no reason to even go back. You’re busy having fun.
This is very similar to my experience re: trainer management. Very helpful to hear someone else has experienced it and you are now in a much better place! Thank you.
If you are looking for the words to let your current trainer know that you are not working with them any longer, here is a suggestion … written (email or text or both) to not get into a verbal discussion of why and other issues, to avoid getting into a situation where trainer is challenging and argumentative … and of course don’t respond if they answer back argumentatively or try to make you feel bad …
"Dear ___,
My last lesson with your program will be [date] . Thank you for all that I have learned here. For personal reasons I am moving on to a new program.
I wish you all the best, and look forward to saying ‘hi!’ at shows.
Thank you again,
You"
In place of “last lesson”, it could be “last day”, “last session”, etc. Of course you can also end after “with you all the best” and not add the friendly part, which is only if you anticipate seeing her again.
I would not tell her what program you are joining. That opens the door for her to argue against it. Not what you need right now.
If she responds in a wheedling, begging, or confrontational way – just don’t answer back. Pretend you never saw it. Keep moving forward.
You can be the one to move forward without giving her an opening to make you even more miserable.
If in a couple of months you see her at a show, sing out in a smiling friendly manner “hi Jane!” and keep walking on past. It doesn’t matter if she says “hi” or not.
In possible future encounters, you can pro-actively set the tone of positive friendly cheerfulness by being prepared to grin big and sing out “hi!” – and keep moving to avoid conversation. Big grins / smiles are disarming. Later if you see her, smile always, speak first, and make it cheerful and matter-of-fact in tone. Polite, but nothing more. No chatting. Move on as if you are on your way to a mandatory appointment - smiling.
I know these situations can be painfully hard to sever when you may well be seeing people again out at shows or whatever activities you do that your current trainer also does.
I had two spectacular trainers growing up. One left for career reasons, and I left before the second did due a combination of injury, finances, and the fact that the owner of that farm was incredibly toxic (though my parents knew the bulk of that, not me, since I was thirteen when I left).
I picked back up with a different trainer in high school and it was fine to start with, but when I was in college it became particularly bad. She was manipulative, she pitted all of us against each other, there was a lot of pressure to show and spend a lot of money even though she would turn around and insist it wasn’t required, and at one point I took an eight-month break because I was having literal panic attacks about going to the barn.
I ended up back with her for another couple of years because I missed riding and didn’t have other options at the time, which turned into my best friend and I doing night check, putting the rides on the horses that she was supposed to be training, her trying to stiff me on the lessons she owed me in exchange for cleaning all of the lesson tack, her leasing out horses that were not hers to lease because the owners were absent and the lessees did not know they weren’t involved, and a whole pile of other things.
My falling out with her was rather dramatic (but private). I started riding at an acquaintance’s barn about nine months later, just for fun, because she knew how I rode and trusted me to put miles on her 4yo, and ended up buying my own horse off the track within six months of moving there. Two years ago I moved him to my current trainer’s barn. She’s actually the second of my childhood trainers and it has been nothing but positive being back with her.
The group of boarders at my barn is, with one teenage exception, all grown working professional women, all driven toward our own individual goals (which do not have to be show-related, my trainer does not care what our goals are as long as we have them) and incredibly supportive of everyone else’s. My trainer will not stand for any BS and is mildly terrifying to most people but she’s incredibly compassionate and has been instrumental in helping me work through the confidence issues that I have relative to show jumping courtesy of my former toxic trainer. I got laid off from my job in the first half of 2024 and the first place I went after my house was to the barn because I feel safe there. I have not had this much fun with horses in my life.
I’m coming up on six years of owning my horse. My trainer, vet, and farrier adore him. He’s got scope for days, is a decent mover, and my trainer keeps threatening to steal him from me to go run at least Prelim on him. My former trainer spent years disparaging me and despite that has somehow been trying to get back in my good books since I started showing him off. Unfortunately for her I will not let her touch him with a ten-foot pole and I am no longer naive enough to subject myself to that level of negativity and toxicity, especially given how good an environment I’m in now. Do not make yourself stay in an environment that does not serve you. There are a thousand better ones out there.
OP - I just came here to say that the barn environment should never be a place where you feel uncomfortable, unwanted, or taken advantage of. What someone else said above rings true: if you feel guilt for leaving what you describe as a toxic situation, it’s likely bordering on an abusive situation. BTDT.
If your current trainer is as toxic as mine was, be prepared for them to rake you over the coals with everyone. Don’t let that stop you from leaving if it’s the right thing to do, however.
Take a few lessons with the new person just to be sure it’s a good fit - don’t burn your bridges until you’re sure you won’t need them.
My story of leaving is not the success story you’re looking for. While I did leave, I quit riding at the same time. There were no other instructors in the area to ride with, without hauling some distance away, which I couldn’t afford to do. But after years of riding everyone else’s horses but mine, never having the lessons promised to me, having her horse try to kill me not once but twice, having my time mean absolutely nothing, realizing she would never let me progress past Training Level, and taking in sick kittens because she could afford to have her horse sent to umpteen trainers, but not to get her damn cats spayed and neutered - and a host of other things - I couldn’t take it anymore. But you have a place to go, so don’t let my story stop you.
Run like the wind from this place. BTDT wont do it again.
if you aren’t happy going to your barn then don’t go there. Simple as. Go with nice place and happier people. You will get much farther if you have positivity to lift you and encourage you. If you are feeling negative and feeling dragged down that affects your forward progress and your animals as well.
Too bad if current trainer is offended. What’s she going to do? Yell at you some more and make you feel worse? Pfffft to her. And her ego.
You’ll experience nothing but success when you leave a toxic, unfriendly barn, IMO. Things can only get better!
I’ve been fortunate have boarded at decent boarding barns. Sometimes I’ve been outside of the “inner circle” of the BO/BM/trainer and some clients, but that’s on purpose because I’ve seen many a fallout and issue from getting “too close.” So I keep good relationships, but don’t get over involved.
Leave it and don’t look back. Life is too short and horses are too expensive (in money, time, and energy) to not enjoy your time around them.
I’d say god I hope not but if we didn’t then that means there’s two of them
Just to add on about the feeling guilty / not wanting to anger your current trainer, OP:
It’s been over half a decade since I left the one who was so terrible for me. I was one of the first in the mass exodus but absolutely not the last. She is, to this day, sharing memes and posts on Facebook about how she’s so horribly misunderstood, how no one ever recognized her true value, how she’s been a victim in every situation she’s ever been in, how all the people who talk about her behind her back are just cruel gossips who don’t know the real story, and here’s the thing: almost every legitimate professional (and many of the amateurs) in the area has a story to tell about her, but nobody discusses her except with their own trusted people. Do you (g) have any idea how toxic you have to be to make it so that everyone has their own story about experiences with you and isn’t just parroting other people’s?
There is no good way to leave a person like that. You can think you’ve managed it successfully but they will absolutely be in their own barn talking about how awful you are and how you just didn’t appreciate them enough. Don’t let their ego be your problem. Speaking from experience, it all comes out in the wash later on. I have nothing to do with the handful of people who still buy what my former trainer is selling (and there aren’t many, the local horse community here is small and the English side of it is even smaller). The rest of us are having a great time kicking around at our own barns and shows being free from the drama that she brings with her everywhere she goes. She can say whatever she wants about me because I know what’s true and so do more people than she thinks, and the ones who think any number of us are lying are unfortunately going to learn that lesson the hard way.
Dear God, I think we DID have the same trainer! Mine was exactly like this - everything was about her, everyone was out to get her, she did everything for everyone and got nothing in return, and ye gods, the DRAMA! If drama was not currently ongoing, she had to create some.
She was exhausting.
OP, if any of this rings true for you, run, don’t walk. It will not get better. You run the risk of becoming so ensnared that you can’t get out.
I was in a toxic barn culture for 10+ years and only realized it once I left. “Trainer” threatened to throw me against the wall, so that was the last straw. I didn’t realize she was preying on my anxiety and keeping me in walk trot land with some canter and the same ancient pony for it all.
Left, went back to my childhood trainer and did more in one lesson than in the past 10 yrs. Haven’t looked back
To me, this is the ultimate tell, for any situation. If people are telling similar stories, people who don’t know each other, aren’t even in the same circles hearing the same gossip … it’s because they are genuinely having similar experiences.
Another way to look at it: If one person is on the outs with many people, and almost no one else has a problem with anyone but her … look to the center of the storm for the cause.
Generally …
A confirmed gaslighter is also a known gaslighter, to those who have been around that community for a time. There is less to worry about their gaslighting than we may think. Because people already know that they are always a raging dumpster fire of misinformation and lies.
They use their mouth to the public as a weapon to intimidate and bully others into staying in line with their narrative. Because anyone who disagrees, anyone who leaves, becomes a target – publicly.
In the circle that is around such people, theirs is the only opinion. Whatever the situation - lame horse; training problem; question about show attire - everyone has to find out toxic trainer’s take on it, rather than reach into their own personal knowledge, or worse, come up with their own ideas. Because anyone with an independent idea is quickly a target. So, even people who know better keep their opinion to themselves.
Such people are profoundly divisive and that is another hallmark trait of their true nature. It has always amazed me that sometimes such a personality can have such wide influence that people who aren’t even close to them are separating into camps that can’t agree on some basics one would think would be a given.
Another huge tell – toxic personalities will relentlessly criticize people with true skills, knowledge and influence in the field. Their targets for harsh criticism include famous / well-known experts, and experts accomplished and recognized at high-skill levels. This amazes me, and amazes me even more that their inner circle follows the same critical line. But I get it - toxic trainer can’t have their own inner circle learning from true experts who will reveal toxic trainer’s lack of - well, anything to offer of genuine value.
For people coming in from outside of the knowledge set, it can take time to realize this situation. Understandable. But once it’s apparent, it’s time to get as far away as possible, as fast as possible.
, competition for trainer attention, leaving passive aggressive notes about trivia, trying to shame people into conformity, materialistic status competition, and formless social anxiety.
