Spin off....mean (not ok) things trainers have said. ..

[Ozone]

Another one… got me thinking about the above post. A bit off thread here but. My friend is sitting in the judge booth with the judge.

It was a 3’3 Eq class. I enter the ring on a Bay… judge says to friend sitting there… I don’t like TB’s … a friend enters on one of our wonderful, big, athletic paint horses. Judge says to my friend… Cow horses belong with Western saddles. Last friend enters on a Huge Grey TB… Judge says if this horse gets around its getting frist. My friend sitting there says … he’s a TB … Judge? I don’t care I like his color.

Really! What is that??

[Mozart]

Hmm…this one is more goofy than mean. Clinic with eventing trainer, schooled a course and all she could say was “stop pressing your lips together when you jump; you look like one of those apple faced dolls”. Um… okay…thanks for the “advice” but what about the riding part?

[Ridinwyoming]

Most recently “your horse doesn’t need a wet blanket you do”.

And “your backyard horse won’t amount to anything”.

[UST]

IT IS SCARY!
These are the Judges, they are supposed to be knowledgable, fair and professional:eek:
Well, at least not all of them are like this…

[TheresanAppfurthat]

Mortifying to a very young woman just “getting used to” her new adolescent physique, shouted at her by a woman trainer notorious as much for her high-decibels pottymouth as much as for her winning eq students, when repeated admonitions to me to sit up straight didn’t get much in the way of results: “git yer knockers UP and keep your d*mn lulu FORWARD.” OMG. It’s been more than four decades and I still remember absolutely dying of embarrassment at that!

Bad enough that my mom would hide halfway behind a pillar at indoor shows and chicken-cluck at me to remind me to stop jutting my jaw forward and put my “neck against my collar.” Nothing like concentrating on your ride, have your neck and jaw drift forward and suddenly hearing “bwAK bwuk bwuk” from the rail…

But same trainer later redeemed herself: I competed at times on a little Crabbet-bred Arabian stallion who had the loveliest temperament and flawlessly good manners and at one all-breed show this same trainer was holding forth on bad mannered stallions and why kids should never be allowed to show stallions in breed classes, and she said not skipping a beat and VERY loudly “EXCEPT for” my own little stallion “WHO HAS INCREDIBLE MANNERS THEY ALL SHOULD BE LIKE HIM.” More than four decades and I remember especially THAT!

[Bogey2]

---

“I’d be crying if I were riding like that,too. Now do it again”.

I don’t know why but this one made me laugh

[ThreeFigs]

I have a few…

“I suppose you have a barn FULL of these things…”, said disparagingly as I rode my Arab gelding into the arena for a first-time clinic with a Big Name gal. WTF?

Here are a few comments from one of my first instructors. He was a helluva horseman, but crude, to say the least…

“You look like a crow on a garbage can.”

“Be proud your bosom! Lift up your bosom!” He pronounced the word as “Boozy”.

“Sit on your p*ssy.” Innocent child that I was, I had no idea what part of my anatomy he was talking about, assumed it was some foreign term!

And once, while on course in a jumping class, he shouted from the rail, “Use your A**!”

EVERYONE heard him…

Oh, thank you, thereanappforhthat, for the laugh! Your instructor must have been MY instructor’s long-lost sister!

[JCS]

These are making me soooo thankful for my wonderful, sweet trainer!

[leilatigress]

Trainer#1 Not my child and not my horse
If you keep riding like that you’ll never get past Intro Level. This was a child maybe 8 years old on a saint of a pony.
Trainer #2 Me on Pal mare
That mare can’t win nothing she’s a 1/2 arab piece of ---- Being my mare and a complete witch trainer came a bit too close with the lunge whip and Pal mare fired a double barrel at her. Mare had a VERY high opinion of herself and was truly breathtakingly beautiful. Mare didn’t connect with the feet but did connect with her teeth when she was stupid enough to try and grab her reins. Saw the trainer on the rail the next show as we won every class and a few months later the trainer did apologize for her bad behavior. Unfortunately my mare did not forgive her though she didn’t bit her again and contented herself with pinning ears and cocking a foot.
Trainer#3 Me on Pal mare
“Are you truly stupid or did you not hear me just say to get your mare on the left lead and canter over to that side.” I tolerated a lot from many many people but I am not stupid and would not be called names. Executing the requested manuver I then walked my mare to the middle and got off. “Why are you getting off your horse?” “I do not tolerate being called stupid, adults that resort to name calling are not worth my money.” I never saw that trainer again.

[sid]

Many years ago, I was taking dressage lessons from an FEI rider/trainer who I just loved.

One day during a particularly difficult session she said “You need to get yourself a legitimate horse”. I got off the horse and ended the lesson, I was so upset.

The horse was a TWH. The transitions from walk to trot were, um, “interesting”. So, she had a point…:lol:

[Shiaway]

This happened recently actually, from someone who is soon to be a judge. “I struggled to find anything positive to say about this pair”.

Don’t think I’ll be forgetting that one any time soon.

[catknsn]

[QUOTE=Eye in the Sky;5538598]
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. :([/QUOTE]

I got called pathetic by an instructor when I was 15. I doubt it will surprise anyone to hear that within a few years, I was consistently whipping her ass at our little in-barn schooling shows.

I do not believe anyone should give a dime of their hard-earned money to someone who is disrespectful to them, period. I do not believe in the theory that being tough with people helps them improve. I think that being able to explain things coherently so that the student is able to follow the instruction and get results helps them improve. You don’t learn much when you are crying and I have seen it all too often at horseshows.

[Zarafia]

I know I don’t ride well. I like to say that I’m a very experienced rider, just not a very good one LOL.
But the meanest thing my present trainer has ever said to me was that he thought that my dog was ugly LOL.
On the other hand, a former trainer, who moved to my farm back in 03 was looking at my three long yearlings (1 arab, 1 anglo and one arab warmblood cross) and she says of the purebred, “it’s a good thing you love her, somebody’s got to” about the warmblood cross: “if his neck was three inches longer he’d be a $10,000 horse. Too bad, he’s pretty much worthless” (two years later my “worthless” gelding was competing well at the local H/J shows, ridden by a vet student who loved him to pieces, She wanted to buy him and I had told the trainer that we could split the sale price. Trainer finds out that the student’s father is loaded, so tells me that I have to tell the student that the $1500 I quoted her was wrong. Trainer wanted another zero added to my “worthless” gelding. I wanted my baby to go to the mom who loved him and was becoming a horse vet. I screwed up all my courage and told the student, right in front of the trainer that I had mis-quoted her the price, that we needed to get four thousand for the boy. My trainer’s head turned bright red and almost exploded. As it was she left the barn on the spot. After the gelding was paid for (I had his papers so there was nothing she could do about the price) I signed the papers over. A check was written to my trainer who sharply informed me (after student had left) that because of what I’d done I wasn’t getting any of the money from the sale.)
I won’t even bore you with the story involving the anglo LOL.

[FlightCheck]

~instructor, to large group of students~

“will one of you take her (rider) behind the barn and *&^#$ her, so she can learn to ride the sitting trot? I HATE teaching virgins”

[hundredacres]

[QUOTE=tothepointe;5538838]
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.[/QUOTE]

I hope you didn’t give it up altogether! You’re riding again, right?

I’m kind of disgusted by these comments in this thread - specifically about weight and rider conformation (I seriously can’t think of a word for human conformation right now). Wwhat makes people so horrible, that they feel good insulting others?

[adragonwolf]

I was at an adult rider clinic doing dressage, I had horrible gall stones so was not feeling too well but rode anyways. After a good lesson and warm up we had to do a test in front of a judge, I just felt worse and worse and my old horse was just taking care of me and going slow and steady, when we got done the judge stood up and screamed at me “That was terrible! Just awful! Do it again!”. I was in tears! I wasn’t the only one, she had a fifty year old woman sobbing after her test. I won’t go to a clinic if this woman is there working, she is just unpleasant and vile to riders!

[JetSetjr]

Once I fell of my horse during competition. I was face down, in the mud and knocked out.

Later I over-heard my trainer telling someone he had to flip me over like a well done steak and laughed about it.

On a side note, he never told the EMT’s that I had been knocked out, if he had - they would have sent me to the ER. I didn’t even know I was knocked out until later. I drove my horse home, felt strange later that night, called my doctor the next day who told me to immediately find someone to drive me to the hospital for a cat scan.

I ended up with a concussion but I’m fine now - just a little bruised emotionally.

[rainechyldes]

my first real horse… ,meaning show horse that wasn’t an endurance horse ( I was about 16ish) I went out and bought a 17.2hh TB, chestnut, 4 white socks and a big blaze - he was absolutely adorable. I had used all my hard earned cash I’d saved up on him, with a bit of help from dad.

I took him to my next jumping lesson , proud as punch! - my trainer took one look at him and said ‘.
"I refuse to teach you on that piece of crap - chestnuts aren’t worth a damn, go buy a bay.’
I left the ring in tears with my horse, and sans a riding coach.

the next year, I rode that same horse in the tryouts for the canadian junior jump team, and beat all her ‘students on bay horses’ out for the Western spot.

to this day, she’s never spoken to me again.

guess I win!

[danceronice]

Chestnuts aren’t worth a damn?

Gee, someone call Ian Millar and ask if that works for him. I wonder if Secretariat and Man o’ War’s owners every realized what pieces of crap they were, too…Sounds like you dodged a bullet leaving that genius.

[ChocoMare]

@FlightCheck;5541179

~instructor, to large group of students~

“will one of you take her (rider) behind the barn and *&^#$ her, so she can learn to ride the sitting trot? I HATE teaching virgins”

This beats all… hands down. Absolutely sickening and I can only hope he/she was fired on the spot. :mad: