No, I knew and respected the instructor she had previously worked with. She was just a delusional loon.
Compounded by the fact that her daughter was a talented rider. Some mommy/daughter/dreams deferred issues, for sure.
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yikes. you deserve a raise for dealing with that!
My DH and I were up in Mackinac island several years ago. You can rent carriage horses that take the same route every day and just follow the path.
We go to the rental desk and they ask about experience. My DH tells them I am a pro rider who just missed the Olympics. He goes on about how I compete - show -train. I’m shaking my head giggling as this is just ridiculous. I ride first level dressage and hop over small sticks. He gushes. I’m laughing.
Counter person #1 looks over to counter person #2 and says “give them Rocket” then they both giggle.
To their credit they did not overhorse me and gave me a horse who didn’t just want to follow the crowd. We were able to take him on the “optional” route that they don’t tell everyone about.
The highlight was when I left the carriage and my DH to head the horse while I checked out a scenic viewpoint. DH knows nothing and Rocket clamped onto his wrist (not in a vicious, but more of a “hey what’re you gonna do if I bite you?” kinda way.
My DH still tells the story making it sound like I was the only one who could handle the horse. It was refreshing to not have a dead-head and I think the horse enjoyed the adventure too.
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Hey! I did that too. They let us go out (myself and my husband) alone and mine kept wanting to bolt back to the barn about halfway in lol It ended up ok, but I keep wondering what might have happened if an actual inexperienced but full of braggadocio rider appeared.
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I think the “delusional” factor comes into play with all sports that aren’t team-related and don’t have very obvious physical or skill-related barriers but more subtle ones. Most people can look at an NCAA college basketball player and know that even if this person isn’t the “best of the best,” there is no way they could compete with him or her, or know that just because they did a cartwheel in gym class they can’t do what an Olympic-level gymnast can do.
But because running is what most healthy, able-bodied people can do (without significant limitations), people enter marathons and other races all the time without adequate preparation, not just for the distance, but also the likely race conditions (heat, wind), just to say they did it. Or they don’t fully understand the difference of difficulty level between hiking/skiing particular terrain because they can do the activity at a basic level.
In the case of horses, some people with truly no knowledge think because they can sit on a horse they can ride. Or they have ridden their own well-suited, calm horses under a positive and undemanding instructor, and are surprised when they lack the tact and skill to manage a greener and more emotionally fragile horse, or they don’t realize the difference between moving up a level, jumping-wise. There are so many moving parts in horse sports especially, (horse, rider, instructor, discipline, conditions) even humble and experienced people sometimes overestimate their abilities.
On the other hand, I too am sometimes baffled at people who are just flat-out delusional (not just ignorant or inexperienced) about their riding. I mean, I’m pretty open about the fact that I’m a very mediocre and not-great rider. But I recall riding in a group lessons with people who were dragged all over the place just getting the horses tacked up, could barely get the horses to move, got in other riders’ paths…what I would consider true disasters of rides. And when I spoke with them after, to be sort of encouraging, they described enthusiastically how well they’d done, burbling about leg yielding, responsiveness, adjustments of gait…it was like they had been in a completely different lesson than what I saw.
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Since most non-riders think the horse does all the work and even Olympic riders just sit there and steer toward the next fence, it doesn’t surprise me that so many rank beginners thinks they’ll be fine on a horse way above their skill level.
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My barn does public trail rides. The horse for the “experts” usually comes hauling arse shortly after leaving the barn. Sometimes with an empty saddle. Once or twice an “expert” had wet pants. “I didn’t know they could go so fast!” “What is he, a mustang racer?”
One of my favorites was the " expert" who went to pony camp for an entire week once when she was a child and she needed the fastest horse we had cuz she was gonna teach her friends how to ride. Oh and she’d even train the horse for us while she was at it. She’s so good her group didn’t need a trail guide-she was going to do that too. She got quite pissy when informed no matter how good she was, the guide was going or she didn’t ride. A little while later, shrill screams fill the air as Dobbin comes trotting back to the barn. “Expert” is wide eyed in terror, clutching the saddle horn. Reins dangling. And somewhere along the way she lost her headscarf (hijab?) And had leaves in her hair. Apparently she got tired of a walk only ride, told trail guide to shove it and took off down a side trail because she knows what she’s doing. That’s when Dobbin decided to haul butt for the barn and, being the grand expert she is, had no idea how to stop him and his terrifying trot. 
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Well, also horses aren’t all alike, so “I rode horses, I owned horses…” Can still mean an array of things.
My boss needed a gift for his wife and leased my horse for her. She had ridden, galloped TBs on a beach,… So I felt pretty good about giving it a try.
🤦
She got on, and off they went racing faster and faster around the arena, her head coming dangerously close to the beams…
We agreed she should instead take lessons.
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Several barns ago I boarded at a barn that routinely ace’d the horses for lessons. Even the boarders’ horses. Not mine!–I lessoned privately with another trainer.
Boarders were clueless.
Then a bunch of them went on vacation some place, did some trail riding, and came back with stories about how the horses were maniacs. No, they were awake.
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The ones that annoy me the most are the people who once they find out you own horses, automatically think they’ll be allowed to come over and ride. Never mind that they have never been on a horse or once went on a nose to tail trail ride while on vacation. All riders do is sit there, right? I had a co-workers say once he found out, “I’m coming over to ride this weekend.” Not asking, stating. I said great! and while you’re riding I’ll take your new car out for a spin. He never mentioned it again.
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I am sure delusion exists in all fields, but the barriers to entry are different. In the case of the airplane and motorcycle you should be required to show a pilot’s license or a driver’s license with motorcycle endorsement and possibly proof of insurance, so at least that weeds out those with literally no experience. The costs are also significant and the rental agencies are likely to have to comply with laws/regulations as well as terms set by their insurance company to minimize liability.
For Everest and other destination climbs, there is a significant monetary and time investment so that should weed out those just doing it on a whim (which is not to say that some people still turn out to not have as much experience as they really need).
To ride a trail horse, by contrast, the “rider” probably just need to show up and pay $50-100. No government agency is checking up on whether the trail outfitter is renting horses to incompetent riders, injuries are less likely to result in investigations than plane or car crashes, and many of the outfitters are probably underinsured relative to airports, plane rental companies, motorcycle tracks, etc.
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Just with regard to Mt. Everest and mountaineering, there apparently has been a problem with people going who really don’t have the high-level skills required. They may have enough skill and fitness to accomplish the trip if everything goes perfectly, but if the slightest thing goes wrong, they can fail in spectacular fashion. The book Into Thin Air by John Krakauer documented one such disaster on Everest.
More recently, and more commonly, the development of GPS and Google maps has caused more frequent cases of people going on hikes that are beyond their abilities or without proper equipment.
So, yes, I do think that people tend to over-estimate their own abilities in many sports. Ultimately, they don’t know what they don’t know.
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I doubt that as we live in different continents, however, it seems that delusional yahoos are the same all across the globe! 
And most of them were men who were too much into spaghetti western movies…or their own perceived masculinity.
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This reminds me of poll that was taken about men underestimating women’s sports. Something like 80% of regular dudes said they were confident they could beat Serena Williams in a tennis match. The absolute audacity.
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I used to manage the barn at a biggish summer camp when I was younger and it was always entertaining to hear the stories of people’s riding “expertise”. You couldn’t pry our horses out of the line with a crowbar so it didn’t make a lot of difference, but some were more forgiving than others.
One week a girl who’d been starting out in my pony club as I was aging out was a camper and it was a stark contrast hearing her very humble description of herself as “solidly intermediate.” She had a rocket donkey of a pony and had just rocked around novice XC at the KHP a few weeks prior, lol.
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As an instructor who sees students everyday you can tell how well someone rides by the way they sit on a horse.
I had a girl come for a half hour lunging lesson. This girl could sit on a horse and I wondered why she cane for a lunging lesson. I did the best I could. I tried to keep it as interesting as I could. She could do every exercise in trot and canter.
I wasn’t surprised when she did not turn up the next week. I figured she was probably bored to tears. The next week I was pushing a wheelbarrow of manure when I saw her again. As I went past I said,
Hi, I see you are back.
And she replied with Yes and I will be here every week from now on.
The way she emphasised it I stopped and put the wheelbarrow down and turned back and asked,
Why?
Because after that lesson you gave me I could not get out of bed for 3 days.
But you said you were riding 3 horses a day.
Yes, bareback through a dam.
(OOPS)
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I think you may be on to something. Just imo, any moderately athletic willing person can learn to sit a walk-trot-canter and even comfortably float over a few x’s - on a mechanical horse, no real horse involved. The problem is not the motion. The problem is the horse! It is doing all the riding things AND controlling the horse, who is likely on some other horsey agenda. It is horse behavior that gets them. (Well and the OTTB jackhammer trot … )
But yes, so many are convinced that ‘the horse tunes in to the rider’ and carries that rider where they want to go … like they are Gandalf and the horse is the saintly Shadowfax.
It would seem that most fictional horses are well up on the job they are expected to do. They studied the notes and know their lines and are filled with goodwill toward humans.
One thing I did appreciate about some of the Black Stallion books was the trouble the horses sometimes gave people. Like when Black Minx was biting the hell out of everybody. That was a dose of reality! LOL
I know a thoroughly dressage friend who has little experience or interest with jumping. But out of sociability and goodwill she answered a call for help from a local horse trials to jump judge, with assurance that it didn’t matter that she had never seen a horse trial (or event). She said she looked at the ditches, drops and log piles that were designated “Beginner Novice” and almost had a heart attack. “THIS is BEGINNER ???” I explained that they didn’t mean wtc beginner …
There ya go. If the Team had only paid attention. Your DH is a love! 
Good point. And not for nothing, every state (I think) has the waiver law exempting the operator for liability. I know at least one riding manager who was making terrible choices of ex-speed-event horses for inexperienced-rider trail-ride horses. Although it was an easy job for the horses, once they figured out that they could dump the rider after 10-15 minutes and their job for the day was over.
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I think this is one of the reasons that parents will over-horse their children, even if the child is in a lesson program, even if they are jumping and showing.
One set of parents I knew had a kid who won a junior championship on a kind, well-schooled 22-yo low-level jumper. So they went out and bought this small 14 yo child a 16.3h high-powered WB jumper who was notorious for its behavior - in fact, the horrid behavior is why they could afford it. No one qualified to ride the horse would have anything to do with it (it came from a well-known Virginia barn).
After a few very problematic rides and two hard dumps on the ground I was conversing with the mom and gingerly tried to ask if maybe this horse was a bit much, maybe there were some seasoned local horses that would offer a lot more showing and fun.
Mom was huffy because her daughter had won that junior championship. So apparently that meant the daughter could ride anything.
It was one injury after another for her daughter. She didn’t just fall off this horse, the horse launched her. Given what she was up against the kid did prove to be a hell of a rider. But this horse was incorrigible and way too much for this child rider. The daughter was brave and kept on, but she never got so much as a complete show round out of that horse. Just blew through her junior years and all of her goals while trying to prove that she could ride that horse. Horse was finally, finally turned out to pasture. And was replaced with a new kind, seasoned horse on which the now-older kid had a great couple of show seasons.
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One thing that scares me when I see it is people bringing their children to a pool/the ocean on vacation and letting the kids go into the water despite the fact that the kids obviously do not know how to swim.
A pool is neither a horse nor the ocean. But i don’t know any kids who can breathe water.
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I think another, major factor in this cluelessness is that these people, of course, DO know how to ride. They’ve done it all their lives, on bicycles, in cars, and perhaps motorcycles. This is just something else to sit on and steer.
Of course, there’s an animal involved, but they have been around dogs. They know about animals. So, there you go. They DO know how to ride 
.
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