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

[emeraldsilver]

Six months into lessons with this woman:

Instructor: “Hey, you didn’t clean the bridle. Why didn’t you clean the bridle like I told you to?”
12-year-old me: “You never told me to?”
Instructor: “Of course I did. You’ve been supposed to clean the bridle every lesson the whole time.”
12-year-old me, starting to cry: “You never told me to before!”
My mother (who was at every. lesson. until I was 18): “She’s right. You’ve never mentioned cleaning the bridle before.”
Instructor: “Don’t be idiots. It’s my policy. Just because you’ve never done it before, that’s not an excuse. You should have been doing it the whole time. Stop crying - I don’t like crying kids - take the d@mn sponge and clean it.”

Yeah, thanks. That was one of the final nails in the lid of the coffin of the relationship with that witch. Others “features” of her program included the unfriendly 16h3 total greenie she had me riding (we were not allowed to canter because “he doesn’t know how”) that she wanted us to buy (!! I was 12 and had only been riding for 2 years!) and the time she sent me up the (bare) hill alone to catch a horse as the storm clouds that produced the 1994 Desoto-Lancaster tornado rolled in. (The punchline to that night was that by the time I got the horse back down the hill and through the three paddocks full of horses I had to walk through to get back to the barn… the skies opened up and we didn’t have the stupid lesson anyway. Stopped for dinner on the way home, tornado hit while I was in the shower. Yikes.)

[kittykeno]

this thread

I know this thread is intended to be tongue-in-cheek humor but sadly I see a lot of this and I’ve experienced it a time or two myself. Note how I said a time or two. Anyone who thinks I’m paying them $75 a lesson to hear this kind of crap is crazy.

[Mimi_La_Rue]

[QUOTE=suz;5538561]
lol. and i ahd one tell me my arms were too short.
god did that give me a complex for years![/QUOTE]

It gave me a complex too! Whenever I look at pictures of me on a horse, I cringe at my long torso. I started roaching my back in hopes to make it look shorter.

The funny thing is that I am back with the trainer who said that after 10 years. No torso comments yet.

[Kim]

Sadly, I had a couple of downright mean trainers back in the day…

Some particularly awful comments:

“I would like to break your hand and reset it so it will look better.”

“Get on this horse and ride it. I know more than the vet.” (Horse had lymphangitis and was 3-legged.)

To another boarder whose horse died: “You needed a better horse anyway.”

To another boarder who was trying to grasp a concept: “You are wasting my time. Go play tennis.”

I do not miss those days…

[kateh]

I was taking western lessons for a bit, and was on a horse I’d succesfully ridden plenty of times before, both english & western. For some reason I could. not. get. a lope.

Trainer: You’re in a trot seat. You need a canter seat.
Me: What do you mean? Can you rephrase that?
Trainer: You’re in a trot seat. You need a canter seat.
Me: Do you mean I need to lighten my seat? Am I leaning too far forward?
Trainer: You’re in a trot seat. You need a canter seat.
----Continue walking and jogging around the ring trying desperately to pick up a g-d lope.------
Silence.
Trainer: Kate, this is bad. This is really. really. bad.
Me (in head): NO #$*@! Why don’t you tell me what the hell you want me to do so I can FIX IT?? :mad:

For the past 10 or so years, through 3 lesson barns and countless IHSA horses, I had never completely failed to pick up a canter.

Went home and looked for a different barn, and started riding with someone who could actually communicate.

[eclipse]

A few summers ago at an Out of Province show the whole show grounds heard one trainer yelling at an older ammie rider (we all came out of the barns he was so loud). He was actually down on his knees, while screaming “what the f#$k will it take for you to get over this f#4%^g fence?” :eek: :eek: (his whole tirade went on for a about 5 mins and I don’t know why on earth said rider just didn’t leave?)

And, to top it off, this was on a weekend so there was quite a few of the general public around watching!!

[Graymaresrule]

@kittykeno;5542101

I know this thread is intended to be tongue-in-cheek humor but sadly I see a lot of this and I’ve experienced it a time or two myself. Note how I said a time or two. Anyone who thinks I’m paying them $75 a lesson to hear this kind of crap is crazy.

I occasionally think of the clinician I mentioned earlier, usually when a thread like this comes up. And I think “So I DID figure it out and I sooooo don’t need you.”

Riding well is the best revenge (not saying I’m there yet, but better than I rode for her)

[xeroxchick]

I think there is a tradition of instruction being blunt. Some of this thread sounds so friggin babyish. I mean, come on. There is a military tradition behind most English riding instruction and just grow some brass ones and suck it up. I love it that coaching is one of the last places where we can learn to be tough. Besides, what great stories.
Just smacks of the touchy-feely oh our poor feelings crap.

[mswillie]

[QUOTE=suz;5538561]
lol. and i ahd one tell me my arms were too short.
god did that give me a complex for years![/QUOTE]

I had a trainer tell me that I’d never be a good rider because my legs were too short.

Funny thing is not only are my legs not short, they are kind of long for my height. I’m 5’7" with an 18/18.5" femur. I have long arms as well. I won’t wear long sleeved shirts because they always wind up about 3 inches above my wrists.

I have no idea what she was thinking but I believed for a long time that I simply could never even be an adequate rider. Gave me a complex too, for many years.

[kateh]

[QUOTE=xeroxchick;5542605]
I think there is a tradition of instruction being blunt. Some of this thread sounds so friggin babyish. I mean, come on. There is a military tradition behind most English riding instruction and just grow some brass ones and suck it up. I love it that coaching is one of the last places where we can learn to be tough. Besides, what great stories.
Just smacks of the touchy-feely oh our poor feelings crap.[/QUOTE]

I’m sorry, insults just don’t motivate me? I’m a better, more confident, and happier rider when I’m not scared of being chewed up and spit out for making a mistake. Maybe that means I’ll never make it to the Olympics, but I do this for fun. I developed a thick skin from some nasty treatment in the Big Bad World, I don’t need it at the barn.

[TheHorseProblem]

I was half leasing a horse a few years ago while between horses. The horse belonged to someone who has since become a good friend because of our shared experience with this trainer. The reason why the horse was for lease was because he had spooked in the narrow barn aisle, knocking the owner down and trampling her. Her shoulder was dislocated and her back broken, although she didn’t know that at the time. Anyway, this horse had a rep as a spook.

The lessons with the trainer, whom I shall call N., came with the half lease, and were half-hearted at best. Then one day the horse spooked at a corner we had gone by ten times, and I fell off hard. I get mad when I’m scared, so I sort of cursed the horse and got up, limping and embarrassed. Not only did she not get up to catch the horse or help me, she proceeded to ream me out about how I should never ride again, it was all my fault, the horse was bored, etc. It went on for around 20 minutes, and I am not exaggerating. I kept saying, okay, stop, I’m leaving, but she continued about what a terrible person I was, I didn’t have the guts to be a rider, on and on. I realized in the middle of it that she was trying to destroy my ego about myself. It was surreally cruel what she said to me. Needless to say, I never rode there again, and the owner of the horse returned to ride shortly thereafter.

(I should also mention that N. never rode clients’ horses, and rode her own horse only once a week because she was afraid of him.)

For two years after that I shopped and could not find a horse I could afford or that was sound. I shopped actively, obsessively. When I got discouraged, or lost out on a horse because someone offered more money sooner, I would cry to my husband that it was The Curse of N.

A few years later I ran into the owner of the horse at a show and we swapped N. war stories. Apparently, she flung the curse at other students who crossed her. But I got the last laugh because I got a great friendship out of the deal.

[sanctuary]

@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”

OMG :eek::eek::eek:

[CarCat]

My coach used to joke that I shouldn’t pay her up front, and she was blunt and tough (some great one liners) but she never once made me feel that I couldn’t get it eventually, and she WAS pretty funny

When I was new back to riding after a bad injury, I fell off in the warm up ring of a local show (not my most shining moment but whatever, if we gave up after a bad day none of us would be here!)

The owner of the barn made a snarky comment about how she would never have let me leave my own property riding like that. I heard her, and later introduced myself, making sure to mention how I was so sorry to hear she’d fallen off in her 4th level test the month before. I can’t decide what felt better that day - the look on her face or winning two of my classes despite my horse being an utter twit.

[Equilibrium]

[QUOTE=xeroxchick;5542605]
I think there is a tradition of instruction being blunt. Some of this thread sounds so friggin babyish. I mean, come on. There is a military tradition behind most English riding instruction and just grow some brass ones and suck it up. I love it that coaching is one of the last places where we can learn to be tough. Besides, what great stories.
Just smacks of the touchy-feely oh our poor feelings crap.[/QUOTE]

Read the entire thread and my thoughts exactly. Yes, a couple were not called for, taking girl behind barn springs to mind. If I’m being treated unfairly I say so, but most of the time I see the point. If I want need an ego boost I’ll hire someone to tell me how wonderful I am and go through life deluded. A woman wanted her 20 yo daughter to take lessons with my trainer. I said, well call him then but I can tell you it’s not like her normal place where they back talk the trainer and are happy when the come to the jump part of the lesson. Gone to watch her daughter several times over 8 months, not a thing learned or improved. Mother says well it’s not about that, it’s out spending your money to have fun. Well then scratch lessons with my trainer. And he is not mean or nasty but he does see it as learning and most certainly doesn’t take back talk from a bunch of 20yo’s who think they are great riders. This woman also told me her daughter would be an excellent gallop girl because she rides the SCHOOL horses outside round the 2ft cross country course. Of course she would dear.

And as I’ve mentioned many times before I got told the only thing my hands would be good for were to bag groceries. He went with a whole spiel which was none to nice but he was right. This was a racehorse trainer I was employed by. Still ended up getting on the best horses he had which also happened to be some of the best horses in the world. That’s because after I got done crying I realised he had a point.

Terri

[ThreeFigs]

I teach and I don’t do well with students who expect me to stroke their egos. I don’t insult them, though, either. I learned from the tough old military guy (a Russian by birth, German by heritage) that SOMEtimes a comment can get the student’s attention, and sometimes it’s just a crude insult. I’ve tried to learn the difference!

Some of these stories are hilarious, others are shocking – taking the girl behind the barn for a (ahem!) sitting trot lesson takes the prize.

[ChocoMare]

@xeroxchick;5542605

I think there is a tradition of instruction being blunt. Some of this thread sounds so friggin babyish. I mean, come on. There is a military tradition behind most English riding instruction and just grow some brass ones and suck it up. I love it that coaching is one of the last places where we can learn to be tough. Besides, what great stories.
Just smacks of the touchy-feely oh our poor feelings crap.

It is one thing to be blunt, firm, staunch in your way of instructing. It is another to be downright cruel.

I make it clear to those I teach: When we enter that ring, I am your instructor… not your girlfriend, not your pal or buddy. I will be firm, I may even yell a bit. It’s not personal, it’s the way I teach.

And I am firm BUT I never lower myself to being cruel. It serves no purpose whatsoever and doesn’t teach the student a single positive thing.

[Rel6]

[QUOTE=xeroxchick;5542605]
I think there is a tradition of instruction being blunt. Some of this thread sounds so friggin babyish. I mean, come on. There is a military tradition behind most English riding instruction and just grow some brass ones and suck it up. I love it that coaching is one of the last places where we can learn to be tough. Besides, what great stories.
Just smacks of the touchy-feely oh our poor feelings crap.[/QUOTE]

Many of these comments are aimed at young girls. Sorry, but I don’t see many 13 year old girls in the military. Bet you would would cried if you were a young tween who had some of these things said to her

[katarine]

Meh, often it’s in the ear of the listener.

A former student of mine owned an entirely unsuitable horse. That mare had maybe 2.5 brain cells and would spin and dump this gal without warning. I could ride the mare and get along with her, but that’s 30 years of horses and riding babies, this gal was a rank beginner and tense to boot. After trying 8 ways from Sunday to try to make it mesh, I did finally tell her “Sell this mare. Sell her and don’t look back. She’s not happy, you’re not happy. Sell her and make room in your heart and pocketbook for the right one.” She kept stalling and vacillating. Finally I say “I’m done working with you and this horse. I’ll teach you on mine but I won’t touch this horse or teach you on this horse, period, ever again. She’s not worth it and it’s not getting better and it won’t get better. You figure out how much time and money you want to waste on shoeing her and feeding her, when that money runs out maybe then you’ll see the light.”

Did it hurt? Yep. Did it help get the mare sold? Yep. Is she a former student now, because she’s happy as a pig in poo on the RIGHT mare, a mare I paired her up with…and she doesn’t want or need lessons since they are both happy?

I’m sure someone else hearing that message would be in a million pieces that the mean lady said throw this one back. Too bad. Sometimes the truth hurts.

[Graymaresrule]

IMHO telling someone that their horse is unsuitable or that they are unfit is a far cry from saying that the horse is a POS.

Or that the rider is to short,tall, fat or old.

[danceronice]

[QUOTE=ChocoMare;5543411]
It is one thing to be blunt, firm, staunch in your way of instructing. It is another to be downright cruel.

I make it clear to those I teach: When we enter that ring, I am your instructor… not your girlfriend, not your pal or buddy. I will be firm, I may even yell a bit. It’s not personal, it’s the way I teach.

And I am firm BUT I never lower myself to being cruel. It serves no purpose whatsoever and doesn’t teach the student a single positive thing.[/QUOTE]

This. There’s a difference between being STERN and saying “You will never be any good at this!” There’s a difference between firm and throwing rocks or whipping a pony who’s refusing fences with a green kid aboard. And there’s definitely a difference between teaching and telling someone to take the student out behind the barn and *$&! her so she can sit the trot better because you ‘hate teaching virgins.’ That one borders on actionable, depedening on the age of the student and audience involved. (And nowdays that WOULD in fact get a DI who said it in deep ‘poody’ in the military, so “It used to be a military discipline!” is not a valid excuse for that one at the very least.)