But, I do have to say that these are people you can meet in all walks of life, not just the barn. And they are equally annoying wherever they are!
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Big Red Flags:
Anyone who wants the barn to subsidize their hobby.
ei: Borrow tack because theirs doesn’t fit then never returns the $200 bit. The ones who want free services (holding for vet/farrier/etc, braiding, blanketing, etc) because the staff is “there anyway”. The ones who want to “come out and just go for a ride” but dont own a horse, lease a horse or take lessons.
Anyone who has an excuse not to pay their bills.
Anyone who is personally victimized by the vet, farrier, former BOs, etc.
Not red flags, but pet peeves:
Anyone who doesn’t try during lessons. I’m out there doing my best to motivate, encourage and break things down for you, you owe it to your horse (or mine!) to try to get better!
And finally… anyone who cannot find something nice to say. I try to teach my kids that even when training our eye at the schooling or show ringside, you have to be able to find a positive before finding a flaw. And if you find a flaw, you had better be able to verbalize how you would fix it. That is the difference between developing an eye and being snarky.
On the whole, I just want everyone to love their horse.
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People with no life skills or basic competencies and a childish sense of wonder at how to get literally anything done.
How do I respond to the barn owner’s email, how do I deal with my farrier, the other ladies are mean to me, this is the fifth time I’ve come to the barn in a month and my horse has no water what do I do?
Followed closely by the “I post every bit of drama I stir up in the local horse community on my facebook” type.
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People who think that teaching a horse a new thing will be a battle. Friend has a super nice, sensible mare who will be shod for the first time soon. She’s all ‘this outta be interesting, I hope the farrier is planning to dope her’…I mean why? Why assume TheBattleIsPending in every little thing (different horse trailer, clipping her,etc) when honestly, the mare is super good minded and easy.just annoying and tiring to listen to.
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I showed up to ride in a clinic without breeches. I had tall boots and the boot cut tights i had just haopened to have thrown on rather than shorts. Pure luck. Miraculously I managed to stuff the legs into my Uber tight boots and make it work. I hardly did it to waste my money.
I don’t want to repeat too many points, but I do have to say that many of these “red flag” types who have been in business for years seem to have a strange, subliminal sense of how to keep the crazy contained for the first few meetings with a client. Some of the most unpleasant horse people I’ve ever met were perfectly charming and solicitous upon first meeting. Then once clients were sucked in to their program/ had brought the horse to the barn, the real personality would start to seep through in everyday interactions.
Some clients are genuinely unable to leave for logistical reasons, but crazy horse people (as we’ve seen on this board, in many threads) can often be great at convincing clients who could leave that if the client doesn’t stay at X barn, her riding/horse will never be the same again. Terrible things will happen. Lameness. She’ll never be able to jump above two feet again. Locusts from the sky at every show.
Sadly, I don’t own my own horse. But that does give me greater flexibility to leave bad situations. I try not to tolerate any behavior from a trainer or barn owner I wouldn’t in any other spheres of my life. That includes verbal abuse, emotional manipulation, and malicious gossip about other trainers/past clients.
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People who talk to much about what they know and tell everyone what to do and what everyone is doing wrong. The Olympic riders I have had the honor of being acquainted with never told me how great they are. Was just on a riding trip with someone who told me she was an expert rider who had been on a few riding trips, bragged about her polo experience but didn’t know what a goal rating was and couldn’t clean out her horse’s hooves.
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One of my former BOs told me that if I ever met someone who said they knew everything about horses, to run away. Run far, run fast. And It’s true.
Anyone who is very dogmatic about any discipline or training method.
Another vote for those that blame the horse. Or who want their horse to “love” them or be their “friend.”
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This. If the number of people who say they “trained with George Morris” were ever put in one place, it would equal the population of China.
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My red flag is not folks that occasionally forget something since we all do that. What I meant was people who have a pattern of elaborate excuses not to ride.
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I think there is also a question of boundaries here.
I have a very small inner circle in my life, or rather a couple of small inner circles in different areas.
Within that inner circle there is mutual trust enough that we can gossip funny, petty, malicious; we can offer constructive criticism and advice knowing we won’t be taken wrong; and we are tolerant of each other’s quirks. And we know a bit about each other’s “outside lives” and are interested.
A red flag for me would be someone that doesn’t realize you need to be fairly close to another person before you can act like this. If I don’t know you or particularly like or trust you, I don’t want to hear your backbiting, your advice, or the details of your boring life. I’m not even really interested in your kids.
Anyhow this question of boundaries applies across different areas, not just horses. However, work imposes some disciplines on people and my general social circle is highly curated 
The barn is currently the one place I end up mixing with a wide range of people of different social classes and indeed different social competencies (it’s a low cost recreational self board barn). We’ve certainly had people here who were struggling with health or mental health issues, or both. If you have a good radar for that you can stay friendly but uninvolved.
But really my red flags for horse people are similar to my general red flags. When I was younger I worked extensively in volunteer and community organizations and learned the importance of “watchful waiting” in evaluating new people. Now that I ve got myself nicely siloed off in a job with lots of autonomy, I still apply those principles to thinking about my students.
Anyhow, I figure there are several categories of “red flag” for me.
Do not let this person into your inner circle.
Be friendly but don’t do business with this person.
Be friendly but don’t trust this person further than you can see them.
Be superficially friendly but don’t engage because there is too much craycray brewing there.
Eyes ahead, walk on, do not acknowledge their existence.
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Anytime I go to the barn and there is a flock of people who are accessory to someone there - parents belonging to a student, boarders bringing friends, etc I know to back away slowly. There is nothing worse than the entourage.
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Biggest red flags in professionals in the horse industry -
- Disconnect between words and actions
- Inability to admit when they don’t know something
- Too many horses in their care and/or ownership with obvious deficiencies in care and management (BO/trainer), too many clients to consistently deliver coaching/training services as advertised/promised/paid for (Trainier/Instructor)
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Yes. And there can be people who are talented at what they do, but who don’t have a workable business model or the ability to prioritize or delegate. And they can get themselves into a mess.
I listen to the words but I judge by the actions.
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Crazy barefoot carriers that refuse to believe that shoes will help any horse ever regardless of the condition.
natural horsemanship people…i don’t need a carrot stick or a $200 rope halter to make me a believer in groundwork and treating my horses kindly and with respect.
Anti bitters…do I think there’s a place for them? Absolutely. Do I think every horse should be ridden in one because bits are so mean and cruel? No.
Another red flag is people who wrap their horaes legs but do such a poor job the wraps either slide or they’re wrapped backwards…makes me think they only use the wraps because they are matchy matchy and not because they know how to apply them and what they’re used for.
People who play along with their horse when he or she doesn’t want to load on the trailer…oh it’s okay dobbin, dont be scared! I’ve never met I horse I couldn’t load as long as they understood to move their feet when I clicked and stop when I said woah. And a corn cob broom to the rear as a friendly reminder.
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“Winning ribbons doesn’t mean you know how to ride.” Usually coming from what I call “lifetime beginners”, people who have been riding for years and never had lessons. Having no clue about riding themselves, they often make fools of themselves by criticizing a good rider who shows and wins
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Adding to that, those, beginners and even some of the more experienced and well thought of professionals out there that bash what others do that they really can’t do or do that well, but of course think it is super easy and foolish and unnecessary and below them.
Anyone that has learned and has any idea of what it is, how to train and competed and scored reasonably well understands that they really are clueless about what they so haughtily dismiss as irrelevant.
Very common in the clinician world to hear such about what others do.
Folks, even if something others do is not your thing, respect that it is other’s thing, it has intrinsic value and is not as easy as it seems to train for and perform correctly.
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Yes - this. Not with horses, dogs or kids, is my mantra.
This has been a fun thread. Still laughing about the “knackers” comment from page 1.
My pet peeve is people who don’t feed enough. Two of the 3 barns I took lessons at skimped on hay and feed. It was really obvious and sad. One was a well known HJ barn in the area. Lesson horses work hard enough…underfeeding them is practically criminal. If the program isn’t successful - reevaluate and fix it (or at least try). Hay is not negotiable.
You just can’t really pretend you didn’t realize horses needed a lot of calories. People who “can’t afford” to feed them properly, or who “didn’t realize” that they needed more…make me crazy.
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Yes and no. Back when I was in the Saddlebred world, a lot of the equitation riders who did very well and were in the ribbons really couldn’t ride worth a crap. They all had high-end, push button horses. All they had to do was sit there and look pretty. Put them on a quirky horse or a greener horse and they didn’t have a clue.
Not in any way dissing Saddlebreds or saddleseat. I just got really tired of some of these “Good Hands” riders complaining about any other horse they rode. It was always the horse’s fault.
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They’re still going to be better than someone who’s never had lessons. At least they’ve learned to sit up, balance themselves, develop quiet hands, etc. That’s more than any lifetime beginner can do. Sometimes I’m surprised they don’t fall off more often.
I should add another red flag are people who think they’re great riders because they ride badly behaved horses. They’re brave so that means they’re good. They often boast about the naughty stuff their horse has done and snicker at wiser riders who won’t get on said horse.
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