I was struck, with a jolt, in the lack of support and understanding the instructor showed, in reading the OPs words. Now this could be true or it could be the OPs perspective. We cannot know for sure. OP needs to develop a mature communication with their instructor so that they truly understand what is being said and expected of them
OP, Horses are not machines and cannot be expected to respond the same way every time. One of the challenges of becoming a more advanced rider is understanding that there comes a time when you need to learn how to use the tools ( knowledge) you have, to create the performance you want from the horse. As you become more advanced and the horse less experienced / skilled/ compliant, you discover that you have a hole in your tool box and not so many useful options.
I always referred to my journey as a progressive series of setbacks. You rise to a level of skill and then realize you need to learn a whole lot more skills to rise to the next level. In that phase you feel pretty frustrated and incompetent
OP you need to open yourself to the fact that you are on a plateau and that you need to learn a whole lot more skills before you rise up to the next level. You may be with the wrong trainer, or you may not have an open, humble mind to accept and try to understand what your trainer ( and horse) is trying to teach you.
At 19 yo one also has to question if your horse is trying to say that they are not feeling up to the challenge and , as a horsewoman, you always need to question and put your horses welfare first.
OP, are you still at the same barn with the horse that kept cutting to the middle, or did you move?
If you’re at the same barn as that gelding, I really really encourage you to seek out somewhere else. Clearly that place has a model of half leases and showing immediately (which isn’t conducive to a well rounded start for any rider) and the coach/client relationship you have just isn’t a good fit. You’ve ended the lease, you’re free to explore other options! Another discipline, or just another coach. Take some time off to do some introspection and then go take some trial lessons.
If you’ve moved, or even if not, there is space for a mindset change + remedial mental work since your fall. Was it “any horse would stop with you” (negative and condescending with no other input) or “any horse would stop with you because you’re riding backwards and not committing to the jump, you need to sit back, put your leg on, and let go” (a bit of tough love but with solutions)? It can be really hard to overcome the body’s self preservation instincts when you don’t have enough “good” input to your riding career to overcome the “bad”.
Take some time off, research new riding opportunities, and in the meantime REALLY check your goals and priorities. Then wait for the desire to ride to come back - it usually does, and with a vengeance.
Apologies for the novel, but OP, I’m 27. It will be 19 years since my first lesson in January. In that time I’ve taken two involuntary breaks ranging from weeks to years (concussion and finances in middle/high school, currently in my last week of mandatory time off due to a broken rib and liver laceration) and two very, very voluntary ones.
Both of my voluntary breaks came because I was burned out from riding with a hunter trainer who was not a good coach, created a toxic and hypercompetitive environment for students, and just generally destroyed my confidence (I was dealing with diagnosed PTSD from the fall that gave me the concussion and she very much made it worse) and made me have literal panic attacks on the way home from the barn because of how stressful it was. I was burying horses to the base of fences because I’d been so overfaced and I didn’t know how to trust myself anymore. By the time I got to my second voluntary break at the end of college, I hated horses and riding and didn’t think I’d ever want to do it again.
I was back in the saddle eight months later and bought a horse six months after that.
I’m not suggesting you take it to that extreme (I arguably shouldn’t have since I bought a 2yo straight off the track and was doing it all essentially on my own), but what I can say is that sometimes all that you need is a change of pace. When I started riding again after those eight months, it was because an acquaintance had opened her own barn and invited me out to put some saddle time into her 4yo because she was too busy to do everything herself and had seen me ride enough to trust me with him. I rode him for close to a year (while I waited for my horse to grow up enough that I could get on him for half an hour) and all I did was have fun.
All I did was have fun. We went out on hunter paces, and I took him to a jumper show and did the 2’ on him and brought home ribbons in classes that I very much was not trying to win (turns out I can ride when I’m not overthinking everything), and I went cross-country schooling for the first time in a decade (I’m an eventer at my core), and then I spent three years putzing around with my own horse. I rode him out all over the farm and down the road and made him become acquainted with tarps and bikes and my barn owner’s daughter’s tricycle, and I took him out on hunter paces (where I went around all the jumps while my friends went over them) and cross-country schooling, and then he was six and the itch to be coached and make real progress was finally back, so I called up my childhood trainer (not the one who burned me out) at the end of last year and asked if she’d be willing to put up with me again on a regular basis.
Fortunately, she was, and we worked through me getting so frustrated with myself that I was nearly in tears, and took everything back to the basics that she taught me 15+ years ago, and that gave me back a lot of my confidence (as I often say, she never fails to remind me that I maybe possibly might know how to ride a little bit). That is what a good coach does. They don’t shame you, they don’t refuse to help you problem-solve, they don’t insist that it’s all your fault with no other guidance. They take it all the way back to poles on the ground if that’s what needs to be done (as it was with me) and they encourage you through it until you’re at a place where any criticism is actually useful.
If I were you, I’d do exactly what @fivestrideline suggests. Take a step back, give yourself a break, think about what you want out of riding, look into other programs and trainers to see if there’s something local to you that will be a better fit for what you want when that urge to just go for a canter comes back, and above all: go easy on yourself. I love my barn and my trainer and what I do, but I still have days or weeks where I just can’t, and during those times I might not sign up for any lessons for the week in favor of just hanging out with my horse or taking him out for a hack on our four-mile loop. My trainer doesn’t care because she knows we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming the following week and this whole thing is supposed to be fun. You deserve to be in a place that allows it to be that for you.
OP has likely bugged out but I got to thinking about this over the weekend. Think OP has invested too much emotionally in this whole situation…using success or failure in it to define her self worth. Bit of Black Stallion Syndrome going on.
Its an old horse belonging to somebody else thats had dozens of different riders, at least, in the 14-15 years shes been working. And there is another person also part leasing. OP, its not your horse exclusively and you cannot interpret her actions as a personal slight. Shes not a dog or even a long time, exclusive personal horse. Bet her favorite person is whoever throws the hay and drops the grain. Mare is not making a conscious choice to blow you off in favor of the other rider…unless other rider feeds treats. Even then when the treats are gone, mare will lose interest in that person. Don’t misplace your emotions and self worth in the mare.
OP then goes on to say she doesn’t understand what trainer wants her to do. Yet another clue a different coach would be a better fit. You are kind of stuck here with no good way forward.
Also…its hard to accept as a younger person but this might not be the right time to pursue this very expensive sport . Sometimes you have to step away and wait until better opportunities, and finances, make a better situation possible. Most of us have had to do that, its OK, we survived but we had to move forward. Maybe switching barns, trainers, horses or disciplines but we moved on as you must here.
