Also some connection to Western Dressage at that last farm?
Not a world beater clearly but could be just fine for teaching beginner basics
For me, this process has always started with seeing who returns my calls. It doesn’t matter to me how great a trainer is if they’re super-busy and not in the market for new lesson clients. If I were hunting for a barn this year, I probably would check Safe Sport first because I’m not keen on patronizing people on the list. But then I would make some calls. I have a lot to learn from basically anyone so as long as the facility is safe and they have horses I can ride, I’m going to be fine. If those things aren’t in place, I’m not getting on a horse. Other criteria, like driving distance, the atmosphere of the barn, and chemistry with an instructor can’t be assessed over the phone. You just have to go.
And I would probably make those calls before posting all over a public forum in a way that suggests that I might be a difficult personality to have around the barn. It’s great to get advice, and mine is that at some point you develop a reputation that proceeds you. I’m speaking from a place of caring, as a difficult person (you can see my post history for a description of what it’s like to ride with adult ADHD on bad day - I’m super-nice in person most of the time, but also really weird). I’m not trying to criticize your personality, which is probably mellower than mine, I’m making a suggestion about strategy. You got some recs, now stop trying to sound important and smart before you hurt yourself. Make some calls and go meet some people.
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OK. I am done with this. Anybody who has recs for barns, please share with me. Anybody who wants to talk about biomechanics, go set up your own forum. I will check out some barns, make some calls, and ride at whichever I feel more comfortable at. Is that ok with you all?
Good grief. You’re getting very good advice here, much better than anything available to In real life. You were the person who raised the idea of biomechanics as if it was some important criteria that you needed to find in your next barn and asked if the reputable jumper barn recommended taught that way. You were the one who gave us the names of your coaches and their teacher which let us Google their credentials.
Now that it turns out we aren’t as absolutely impressed as you’d hoped you are in a snit. Not cool. I think if you keep this up post after post folks here will be less likely to give you advice or comment on future posts.
I am not in your area but if I was, based on your repeaated flouncing off in a huff, I honestly wouldn’t recommend you to a barn where I liked the trainer.
I realize you are 14 and if I rightly recall home schooled? We don’t mind that you are young and just starting to learn about horses, but repeatedly getting pissy about good plain advice is not a productive way to interact with knowledgable adults.
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OP, you are a recent newb to this forum, joining just 2 months ago. In that short time, you’ve gone from presenting yourself as a knowledgeable rider with 4+ years of experience, down to 7 months of riding lessons (in one of your more recent threads). I now find myself even questioning that you have 7 months of consistent lessons, as another thread you recently started says you’ve been recuperating from a shoulder injury for nearly 2 months and not riding. I sincerely hope you are all healed up now, as being sidelined from riding is no fun at all.
I understand you are young, and that horses are clearly your passion. But you aren’t doing yourself any favors by embellishing your horse knowledge and experience, and then getting upset when discrepancies are pointed out. Nor are you ingratiating yourself to posters here trying their darndest to help answer your questions by throwing temper tantrums when you don’t like the answers. This is just going to make folks question every post you make and be less likely to respond in future.
This forum has so many really knowledgeable people who freely share their experience. I learn things every week here - and I’m old enough to be your grandmother and have been riding since I was 6 years old. If you close yourself off to different ideas and suggestions, you will never reach your potential in the horse world. Just like any subject in school, if you don’t absorb and learn, you won’t progress. The knowledge offered here on CoTH is invaluable.
So my recommendation is think carefully before posting. Take a deep breath. Remember that you are just starting on your riding journey, whereas most posters here on CoTH have been immersed in their various disciplines for decades. And while you may feel you know more than most people regarding horses, I respectfully submit that at your young age, regardless of the actual amount of time you’ve been taking lessons, that you still have a lot to learn.
Best of luck to you finding a new lesson barn.
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OP, these are just some of the things you have said in the last few weeks on COTH, it does not include posts you have deleted. In many of the threads you start, you become angry at the very good advice you receive. Perhaps you are totally different in real file but the reputation that you have created for yourself here is that you are a very difficult person to work with. If it is your short term memory that causes you to say completely different numbers for how long you have been riding, you need to have your mom help you write down how long you have been riding and what you have done and refer back to it whenever someone asks. Otherwise, people will think that you are not being honest about your experience. If you struggle to remember the difference between 7 months and 4 years (when you were 13 vs when you were 10), you may need to look into instructors who have experience working with children with learning differences as this could be a substantial challenge in your progression as a rider. It also means that perhaps you should involve your parents in your online life and have them help you when you read and respond on COTH. They can help you make sure that you are presenting yourself the way you wish to be seen.
You are young, you will look back on how you are conducting yourself online and cringe. A lot of people have been very kindly trying to help save you from yourself but you have not been receptive. If I were an instructor and saw the way you conduct yourself online you would not be joining my program. I am being direct because I really and truly want to save you heartache and embarrassment.
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A lot of people are offering you good advice, you need to keep an open mind and stop being such a brat!
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Your mother or father should be making the calls. The trainers at the barns you contact will want and need to speak with an adult. You’ll need to let your parents make the arrangements anyway, since they’ll be doing the driving.
You seem to have anger/frustration issues. Those personality traits do not lend themselves to getting along well with horses or riding instructors.
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Um what?? 
Now I’m really confused.
For the record the first thread started by OP was claiming multiple years (I recall 4) riding experience and looking for a job as an equestrian camp counselor. Since deleted after subsequent questions revealed extreme youth and beginner rider status.
Yeah barn wasn’t even in OPs town. That was a comment OP made on the current Riding Falls thread. The OP on Riding Falls thread has done very well at keeping the lesson program barn under discussion anonymous, which is as it should be. There’s no mileage in naming local backyard trainers either positively or negatively, if they haven’t put themselves on the national stage in some way.
Yeah totally agree. Thanks for the update!
That’s correct. The original post in the counselor thread got deleted by the OP and unfortunately nobody quoted it. It was 4 years of riding experience, which she does reiterate later in that thread by saying her mom says that she’s been riding for 4 years. (comeoutandplay quoted that above)
Then a few threads later it was 3 years experience, then a few threads later it was 1+ years experience, and now its down to 7 months (according to this thread). So I’m not entirely sure how much experience the OP has actually taking lessons in a lesson program.
I got my own horse on my 14th birthday 
and before that I did several rental trail rides a year, cadged rides on friends horses, and even did a very low end 6 or 8 week group lesson thing at the super low end dude string barn down the road, where the barn owner who didn’t ride himself chased us with a longe whip. I was a beginner when I got my horse but I learned fast riding suburban sidewalk and mountain trails with my feral friends.
I say this because I m sure my mother would have been capable of saying and maybe believing I started riding at age 8, but I always dated my own years of riding from that birthday because before that was too sporadic to count. And I knew that I couldn’t really ride either.
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To be fair, I and a few others advised the OP that she was oversharing information, identifying information, that was not safe for a 14 yr old to post on a public forum.
Rather than editing the post she deleted it, which is understandable since it was her first post and I would guess that she was not familiar with the editing function.
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Sounds like I missed that post then!
This is true and a good point.
Agreed. I went into a lesson program when I was 6. Got lessons as a Christmas present. Parents really tired of hearing me go on and on and on about horses. LOL So they finally caved. Actually, I think my grandparents had more to do with those initial lessons, because I believe they paid for them.
Many of our friends had horses when I was growing up - polo ponies, trail horses, hunters, etc. and technically, I got on my first horse at age 4. I’d ridden a number of times before I got lessons shortly before my 7th birthday. But I say I “started” riding in 1970, because that is when I started a lesson program at a hunter/jumped barn. I don’t count from the time I first sat on top of that towering polo pony and was led around at a friends house when I was 4.
Please you guys, I have riding experience. Not much, but I have some. I deleted my first post because I didn’t know how to edit it and because that is what the moderator told me to do. Since you all remember stuff So clearly, maybe you all should remember that I have a short term memory thing. Did anyone think of that?
I appreciate all of your advice, but am sick of this back and forth stuff. I introduced Biomechanics because that is how I was learning how to ride. I dropped Holly Masons name because I wanted to make sure you all got my point. That is all.
