[QUOTE=ladybugred;5536170]
I just hope all of you took your money elsewhere when spoken to that way. I certainly would have, after giving said trainer a large piece of my mind.
LBR[/QUOTE]
Well, the trainer who said that to me turned out to be a drunk… it was a bad situation all around.
[QUOTE=faybe;5537486]
I heard this story about an upper level rider who has a reputation for being a little “rough around the edges” in presentation and equitation…
At a [BNT] clinic:
BNT: “You look like a frickin’ truck driver, and you’re riding like one too!”
After the session, a woman approached the rider and said, “I can’t believe you just stood there and took that! I would never have kept it together, I’d have been crying!”
The rider looked the woman dead in the eye and said, “truck drivers don’t cry.”[/QUOTE]
Great story. :lol:
I had a trainer tell me that my torso was too long and I will always look awkward on a horse.
Years ago I was exploring options for working student positions and ended up talking on the phone with one BNT who spent at least an hour talking to me about himself and how great he was.
I swear he didn’t stop to take a breath, and he kept calling me by the wrong name.
Then he had an incoming phone call that he said he had to take.
Rather than ask if we could resume the call at another time, he simply put me on hold. For about 45 minutes. Eventually I figured he’d just forgotten I was on the other line, so I hung up.
He eventually called me and said it was rude for me not to wait on the line (and my dime) for him. By that point I’d already decided I wasn’t that interested in working for the guy, but he started grilling me with questions about my experience and goals.
When I politely stated that, based on what he described about his own WS program, it really didn’t sound like a good match for what I was interested in, he began to criticize my “total lack of ambition.”
I have never regretted hanging up the phone. Blech.
[QUOTE=JollyBadger;5538230]
Years ago I was exploring options for working student positions and ended up talking on the phone with one BNT who spent at least an hour talking to me about himself and how great he was.
I swear he didn’t stop to take a breath, and he kept calling me by the wrong name.
Then he had an incoming phone call that he said he had to take.
Rather than ask if we could resume the call at another time, he simply put me on hold. For about 45 minutes. Eventually I figured he’d just forgotten I was on the other line, so I hung up.
He eventually called me and said it was rude for me not to wait on the line (and my dime) for him. By that point I’d already decided I wasn’t that interested in working for the guy, but he started grilling me with questions about my experience and goals.
When I politely stated that, based on what he described about his own WS program, it really didn’t sound like a good match for what I was interested in, he began to criticize my “total lack of ambition.”
I have never regretted hanging up the phone. Blech.[/QUOTE]
Good for you for hanging up. :yes:
I had an Olympian call me to come and work for him based on a some people recommending me to him. I went up to see what he had to offer and decided it wasn’t any better than where I was at the time so I declined his offer. He was truly SHOCKED that I would refuse him. :rolleyes: When I got back to my current job that evening, I was offered quite a hefty raise to stay since they figured I’d take the position with the Olympian. I didn’t tell them for a couple of weeks that I had already refused the offer BEFORE I headed back to them. 
It always amazes me just how ‘important’ some people think they are…
I was yelled at only once.
Had just started to work for a BNT/BNR in their ws program, had been riding for years, started many colts, shown some, but not learned in a standarized program to get certified, as his was and I was still very rough around the edges.
We were training several horses a day in loosely formed groups.
I was assigned this fresh OTTB and was just loosening up with large circles, not asking anything of him yet, just cruising along.
Here came the BNT into the indoor and I didn’t see him right off, just kept circling and evidently he started calling on me.
I am hard of hearing, which he evidently didn’t know and he kept yelling louder and eventually all stopped, myself included.
I was puzzled, still had not caught he was yelling at me, when he walked over and started again yelling at me that when he spoke, I was to do what he told me and he was very, very mad at me, for what others told me later, but I didn’t quite catch all he said to me.:eek:
I just said, sorry, I am hard of hearing.
He told me to get some hearing aids, which I did.:yes:
I had a lot of issues when I was showing as a teen. I was still showing my large pony, who had an awesome sarcasm dirty stop, that had left me with 1) some injuries and 2) lots of anxiety. I ended up going to a GREAT hunter trainer, but one day she was just out of it and stressed. I was in a lesson, and in front of my mother, after I had just jumped around a course “Why are you breathing so hard? You’re so out of shape. I think it’s time to eat less and start running every day.” My mother sat by and just nodded. If looks could kill, they’d both been dead. 1) I had anxiety 2) I had asthma and I was a whopping 110 pounds and in shape.
I also had the screaming witch of a trainer previously, who chased my horse with a lunge whip. She also told me that I’d never amount to much. Left her in a hurry.
You have a big a**. Why don’t you sit on it. (I have a bad habit of perching.)
I was looking for a new lease horse and trainer to start over after a long string of confidence ruining rides at my old barn. I did one more lesson with her and then decided that once I regained my confidence that I would probably end up cursing her out… at a show… in front of her peers.
Rather than doing that I changed trainers.
[QUOTE=Mimi La Rue;5538197]
I had a trainer tell me that my torso was too long and I will always look awkward on a horse.[/QUOTE]
lol. and i ahd one tell me my arms were too short.
god did that give me a complex for years!
This wasn’t an insult, but once when I was on my first horse, I was in a lesson with a terrible trainer. My horse took off around the ring at a dead bolt.
My trainer’s helpful instructions were “Stop Him!!”
The only trainer I used said to me to kick my horse like I’m kicking a guy I don’t like. Now this horse does not like to be kicked. She would not give up until I gave him a good kick. The horse had enough and started to buck. When asked if she would like to ride him since she said she could ride anything, she replied "Oh no,no, no ,no, NO!
I was 12 years old, and a very mean man told me “you’re a pathetic rider”. 
He was not my trainer, but I had looked up to him. It crushed me. However, it is what caused me to throw myself into finding a really great trainer and becoming the best rider I could be.
Still, even recalling those words, they still have a sting to them. 
I was afraid to ride english for years because my first trainer, a western coach who I really did like and respect, told me all english riders yank on horses’ mouths, all horses hated this, all they do is trot trot trot and when they ride out of the arena they road founder their horses and worst of all their posting looks like a monkey ****ing a football. I had a lot of mental preconditioning to overcome 6 years later when the thoroughbred I chose to keep showed me she really really likes being a little hunter diva and jumping is her idea of a good time. :lol: Added bonus, I can ride a buck in an english saddle a heck of a lot better thanks to her, and I don’t bang up any body parts with big bruises in the process.
One of the girls I rode with came to a December horse show after her first semester in college, complete with the unfortunate “freshman 15” and her horse a bit pudgy from having the semester off. We were sitting on our horses at the in gate when a VERY sparkly BNT (not ours) walked up to her and said, “My Gawd, honey did you fatten up that horse so your thighs wouldn’t look so big?!?” She was mortified!
I had a lesson with a very negative instructor who kept telling me that my left leg was driving him crazy and couldn’t I keep it still. Well, obviously if I could keep it still, I would keep it still!
He didn’t give me one bit of advice, just kept telling me what I was doing wrong.
He must have building up some pretty bad karma, because minutes after my lesson, he got on a horse that proceeded to do a huge spook and dump him.
Not terribly mean but…
“I can’t help you anymore” as I’m sitting untop lesson pony that had just dumped me into the bushes and ran back to her stall. I’m bawling my eyes out (yes I AM an adult)
I didn’t really do anything that was particularly unhelpable but said trainer didn’t really know/have patience for training beginners and tended to just throw them in at the deep end.
This was of course when I was paying her $600/mo for lessons and partial lease.
I quit about a week or two afterwards. But now I feel bitter that I was bullied out of a sport I loved by someone who showed most concern at the beginning of the month when the checks were due.
From a BNT who is, shall we say, known for her straight talking ways:
“You’re going to have a hard time getting your legs around that (pointing to my horse’s barrel) . When she’s due?” - about my not fat, not pregnant, just well sprung Arab.
“Oh good lord, tell me you’re putting her on a diet.” - same mare, different day.
From my normal instructor:
“You’re riding a gorgeous, black Arabian mare. That’s not going to change. PLEASE STOP LOOKING DOWN to check!”
I was a working student over seas with a BNR, with english as his 3 or 4th language.
When I started riding there he said the horse I was riding looked like a cow and for the next 3 months he would call the horse I rode a cow, after 3 months of riding 4-5 horses a day I was getting very strong in my legs and seat and my core was like steel. BNR came in to the arena to give me a lesson and 5 mins in the the lesson told me that my horse now looks like a horse and no longer a cow and to go and have a fun trail ride.
Another time he was yelling at me to get this horse on the bit and the horse was fighting. He keep yelling and yelling I was getting so upset that I yelled back “I AM TRYING!” that was the end of the yelling.
My first coach told me that there are dogs bigger then my pony. He wasn’t wrong she was only 12HH. but could she ever jump.
I’ve gotten:
That was a good round FOR YOU…
That was a good round FOR HIM…
Am I being told that I ride like crap and so is my horse? Me thinks so…
Even though this was “only” a 4H-Show, Judge says to my 12yr old student (riding a half arab/half paint horse) as she enters the ring for the first class: “I will tell you right now, I do not like arabs!” HOW UNPROFESSIONAL?!
BNT says to middle-aged lady (with own horse and solid riding experience) asking for lessons: “I cannot teach you, I just can’t go down on that level…” Middle-aged Lady became one of my students, has now 2 horses and shows very sucessfully!
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