Trainer (first lesson with him), looking into the trailer to assist in getting new horse out of the trailer “You BOUGHT this piece of crap?”
“You SUCK!” from a “S” dressage judge/trainer
“Don’t buy that horse.” - from a friend of mine who is a trainer with a pretty good eye for movement… but I will say she is bad at seeing potential. Plain liver mare with no papers, hangs her legs a bit over low fences, but will clear a 4" oxer quite nicely. I was looking for a budget-rack horse to get me to the 1.20m in one piece.
2 years later, and both she and an affiliated trainer that does clinics at her place love her. And the horse is much less “persnickety” about things too- packed me around 1.05m one day when my blood sugar tanked at a show and I could do nothing to help her. 
Well I had my fair share of lovely remarks.
After finishing my first 1.10m show on my then akhal teke mental case of a horse,(yes he went double clear and we came second) a trainer at my stable (not mine but she works at same stable) came up to me to tell me " shame your parents couldn’t buy you a first place like they buy you everything else"
I’ve had the same lady tell me if I trained with her maybe I could accomplish something other than just sitting there looking like a spoilt brat
She used to constantly stand and watch while my trainer would be training me or when my trainer would ride one of my horses commenting at everything from my trainer not wearing decent tall boots to once coming up to me saying I shouldn’t have the breed of horse I have because I’m not capable of even pronouncing it (actually my family have been breeding akhal tekes in russia for about 40 odd years) and at first she thought they where polo ponies.
People really do have issues
I am appalled at these comments/remarks and behavior. I don’t train others with horses, but I train others to train their dogs and I find something nice to say at each lesson. It takes little effort to be nice, and if a trainer can’t find something positive I’d be damned if I’d ride with them again.
I have never had time for people who are so unkind.
[QUOTE=threedogpack;8261815]
I am appalled at these comments/remarks and behavior. I don’t train others with horses, but I train others to train their dogs and I find something nice to say at each lesson. It takes little effort to be nice, and if a trainer can’t find something positive I’d be damned if I’d ride with them again.
I have never had time for people who are so unkind.[/QUOTE]
I agree I went through over a years training to become an Instructor. Some of these posts make me think they did not do any training.
We were told to say 3 positive comments to 1 negative comment. Even if the only thing you could find to say is how lovely the horse’s tail is.
We were also taught to love all our student’s horses.
I was in a group-riding situation, on a borrowed horse, in an arena with a number of my then-trainer’s students all riding, but not during a private lesson:
“Hey, [Silverbridge], you’ve been riding for 20 minutes-- when are you going to put that horse on the bit?” And it was said to elicit laughter from the others in the arena.
That really stuck with me as painful and uncalled for. I was trying a horse other than my own. I was not yet showing, and was just learning the concept of contact. (I still am struggling with that, even though I’m now finally showing.)
If my reins are too long, then I need the trainer to tell me they’re too long. If my horse isn’t “on the bit” then it’s the trainer’s job to help me figure out how to fix that, not to make fun of the situation.
It just points out the ongoing conundrum of the very basics being so hard to instill. And, the problem we AAs in the US often have of trainers thinking we “ought to” know something about dressage that we don’t, based merely on our age or appearance or time in the saddle.
I think some pros think that, because THEY knew the method of putting a horse “on the bit” by the time they were twelve, then I must, at age 50, have some knowledge of how to do that, too.
But they think I’m just being lazy, or obstinate, or passive by not demonstrating it.
My eventing trainer, mentioned above, was “strict” but never abusive. Probably the worst thing she ever said to me - although she was both right and it worked out - was while I was having a lesson on my not particularly talented TB mare (hey, for $1,500 it was the best I could do), and I was STRUGGLING - and had been for months - to get her even remotely on the bit. I was having a lesson, and - voila! - the mare suddenly relaxed her jaw, starting working through her back, arched her neck…OMG!!! My trainer said, “Oh, thank GOD! I was just reaching the point where I was going to say I just can’t teach you any more on this mare!”
One other time, she didn’t SAY anything, but I could tell she was NOT particularly pleased with my new purchase - a 16.3 Appy eventer. Now, it wasn’t because he was an Appy - my previous eventing schoolmaster had been an Appy and she had found him for me. But she hadn’t had the time or opportunity for input on this horse, and I had turned down one horse she had found for me - just didn’t click with him and I think she was a little put out. However, her dislike for my new purchase vanished at our first jumping lesson. Once she saw him jump, she knew why I’d bought him! After that, she LOVED him. LOL
My last instructor after one of our first lessons said and I quote “the only reason you have gotten this far (showing second level) is based on your looks and your horse is cute”. A comment from a male chauvinist instructor you might think…but nope female. First off I’m pushing 50 and am no beauty Queen…my horse is a really cute Arab though :lol:. I was so taken aback by the comment primarily because I have trained this horse myself with once a week lessons. I bust my hump in and out of the arena to try and better myself and my horse so I was hugely offended that she tried to diminish The modest success I had in the show ring.
When I was a kid I had a BNT (clinic) tell me my horse was dangerous and was doing nothing for my confidence. He also spoke to my coach about this horse being highly unsuitable/dangerous.
Could have been construed as mean, and yes, I was upset, but he was right and his comments were the catalyst that helped me accept that I needed this horse to go somewhere else so I could ride a horse that wouldn’t try to buck me off daily.
No one ever says anything (to my face) about my riding, and I haven’t taken a lesson in years!
But, I can remember a few comments from my childhood (age 13-15).
Trainer 1: After I couldn’t get my horse to do a correct lope-through in a 360 box (whatever you call those things), the trainer hopped on and proceeded to fight with the horse for the longest time until he shoved the reins at me and said “He can’t do it, don’t ever bring this horse to my lessons again, he’s a piece of sh*t”. Ended up buying the horse which leads us to …
Trainer 2 (but not my trainer): “You can’t train that horse, he’s way too much horse for you”. Trained that horse to jump a course to perfection. He never refused and I can count the number of rails he took on my hands. Didn’t have a coach at all in the time I broke him to jump, did it myself as a determined 15 year old.
Other (misc’) offensive things: When I was at a hunter schooling show (my horse was a leopard appaloosa), a man came up and said to me “why do you bother showing an appy, a judge would never pin spots over fences”. As a child, that really hurt me. Now, if someone had said that to me I’d tell them to f*ck off, but then it really bothered me because I’d tried so hard to prove myself with that horse. I never showed hunters after that though, decided it wasn’t worth my time.
Not many a nice thing was ever said about my old appy (rest in peace), but he was quite the talented boy who never did me wrong.
To add: I don’t plan on taking lessons ever again, but I can’t imagine paying someone to offend me. That lesson would last a total of 5 seconds if that were the case.
You should have heard the way the H/J trainer spoke to the equestrian girls at the equestrian college I attended. Holy crap, these people were paying thousands and thousands for this “education”
And the funny thing? These girls sucked up to this trainer like she was George Morris reincarnated. Should would completely tear into some of the girls in front of the rest of the classes. Like mean spirited, personal attacks that had no basis. Considering she just holed up in her office when not teaching a riding class so she had no clue about what was going on in the barn.
There was also the issue of her ill behaved dog being allowed to run around loose and running into the arenas during riding classes and chasing the horses. One girl broke her back because of that stupid little rat dog. I am amazed the school didn’t get sued, as no liability waiver overrides negligence. I think she got into trouble after that one though. Her dog was put on a leash for a week or so.
[QUOTE=SuzieQNutter;8261860]
I agree I went through over a years training to become an Instructor. Some of these posts make me think they did not do any training.
We were told to say 3 positive comments to 1 negative comment. Even if the only thing you could find to say is how lovely the horse’s tail is.
We were also taught to love all our student’s horses.[/QUOTE]
there are ways and ways to ask or speak toward a subject too. A student who is over horsed, you can say
“You’ll never learn to ride him, you don’t ride well enough” or you can say “How do you feel about riding him? If he frightens you, let’s talk about that.”
One is kind and opens up conversation, the other is unkind and shuts it down. I never want my students to feel they can’t discuss issues with me.
During a semi-private lesson with 1 other adult student.
Instructor: When are you going to lose weight?
Me: I don’t want to talk about.
Instructor: You really need to lose weight. What are you going to do about it?
Me: I don’t want to discuss it.
Instructor: You should go on X fad diet.
Me: Get off horse and head to gate. Instructor grabs bridle and won’t let me leave we argue for a half and hour. Me in tears.
I felt really bad for the other lesson student she was at the far end of the ring trying to not intrude but couldn’t leave the ring since we were blocking the only gate.
This is all very interesting to read through. I’ve been trying to think of things instructors have said to me that were hurtful, and I can be extremely sensitive to words, but nothing really stands out.
I had some really cool instructors as a kid. Some were louder and more peppery than others but none of them were horrible people. My instructor that I have now is just awesome. While I have gone home upset or angry at times, I would say it was either me being overly sensitive or a miscommunication, or horrible people (not my instructor).
I’ve been with my instructor for over two years now and I have to say, I’m still here because she loves the horses and loves the students. It’s always about having a positive, fun experience. The times I’ve been upset have been the times I’ve gotten ahead of that mentality and have let the difficult horse get the best of me.
We have an instructor here at the barn who I hear is pretty good but then she also tells us that one of her prized horses is so prized because he comes from a line of stupid horses and he too is stupid/easy to train. Same instructor also punched a friend’s horse in a clinic because the horse wouldn’t stand for mounting.
[QUOTE=flasher;5539621]
From my normal instructor:
“You’re riding a gorgeous, black Arabian mare. That’s not going to change. PLEASE STOP LOOKING DOWN to check!”[/QUOTE]
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: My instructor said almost the exact thing to me the other day!
Asked my trainer for her opinion about a new show outfit: “I suggest you dress completely in black to hide your crappy riding from the judge.”
[QUOTE=SuzieQNutter;8261860
We were told to say 3 positive comments to 1 negative comment. Even if the only thing you could find to say is how lovely the horse’s tail is.[/QUOTE)
Unless, of course, it’s an Appy - then you have to say it’s an interesting colour or has great hooves. (I say this with tongue in cheek, since every horse I’ve had since 1977 was/is an Appy.)
[QUOTE=SomedaySoon;8262764]
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: My instructor said almost the exact thing to me the other day![/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Mimi La Rue;5542286]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.[/QUOTE]
Yes, my uncle told me I should never try to ride a cutter because my legs were too short. To this day, I have never ridden a finished cutter. I’ve put ground work on them, and broke them to saddle, but never shown one. I played with Daddys cows one and figured Bill was right…
[QUOTE=SomedaySoon;8262764]
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: My instructor said almost the exact thing to me the other day![/QUOTE]
[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]
True, but you’re kind too… ask my girls, I stop being Mama when I’m in the ring coaching, and become the tdainer, and it’s a whole different world
I can’t recall any specific things an instructor/trainer has said to me. As an adult, I’ve been very fortunate in working with people who were professional and respectful.
But, my first instructor when I was a child was a screamer. I routinely finished lessons in tears. I guess the fact that I stuck with it is a measure of my obsession with horses.
