I once was trying out a horse and the “trainer” didn’t know how to ask for the correct lead at canter. She kept cantering around on the wrong lead. I got on and told her what she needed to do to get the right lead and showed her by doing. And she calls herself a “trainer”.
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For real. When I started jumping bigger courses for the first time since I was a kid, my coach reworked pretty much everything about how I rode - and I’d been riding with her for a couple of years already. I was like “Um, WHY did you never tell me any of this crazy hidden knowledge before?” and she basically said, “This is an entirely different level of sophistication, you didn’t need it before and you weren’t ready for it. Now you are.” Felt like being inducted into some kind of secret society!
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Lets not forget theres no supervision of those who use the word “ trainer” to describe themselves.
You got real Trainers who strive to continually continue their own education from their mentors, clinics, seminars and keen observation. These Trainers are also aware of teaching techniques and basic psychology plus are good communicators. Most important, they see their clients success or failure as a direct reflection of their skill as a Trainer.
Then you got trainer people who often are lacking some of the above skills and usually unwilling to improve themselves. They lack real teaching ability and often cannot verbalize what their rider needs to know and/or do to be effective, A trainer person is quick to take credit for success and even quicker to blame their rider for failure because they just don’t know how to identify and solve the root problem.
Some trainer people aren’t too bad at lower levels or unsafe but riders who want to advance usually end up stuck with trainer unable to help them advance. The better ones at this level will admit to a rider they cant help them go farther and recommend another, but don’t count on this.
And, of course, you got the JAW folks. Jack A** Wannabe. Legends in their own mind, just ask them. Clueless about the more sophisticated aspects of riding or finesse. Certain they know it all, including every shortcut. Treat their clients like a cult…until they wise up.
Just because there is a person listed as trainer running lessons does not mean they deserve the job description or teach riders what they need to know.
Sometimes new barn mates are not at fault for what they don’t know if they even know what they don’t know. They are just reflecting what they have been taught, or not taught and doing the best they can with what they did learn.
ETA. Often we love our trainer and think they are a real friend with out best interests at heart. Mostly because we have little experience as adults with other trainers so nothing to compare them to. Only if we are always observing how other trainers conduct themselves and interact with clients can we get a clue. Same thing with barns, if we don’t visit others, we think our current barn is run the best.
IME, it was often a shock to change barns and/or trainers and realize the ones I just left were not what I thought.
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Good for you, you don’t learn anything in a place where you’re at the top of the heap.
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Wow, she’s known some pretty crappy BOs, is all I can say. I’ve never experienced this sort of attitude. Sounds like a good way for a BO to lose a boarder pretty quickly.
That said, I guess I have been fortunate with my BOs and BMs. Whenever I switched barns and had to start again with new management/trainers, I was also switching disciplines. Not by choice, just going to the best I could find of what was available in that area in that era.
Most recently I’ve been riding with a western trainer who specialized in barrel racing during her competition days. It has seriously humbled me – not by her criticism but by her positive personality. And the little barrel horse has been teaching me a LOT about just plain basic western riding. 
