What does it mean to get burned?

[Mander]

IMO it’s quite unprofessional to not work with a horse because you weren’t involved in the purchase.

There are plenty of reasons for a trainer to not want to work with a horse. Maybe they don’t have the bandwidth, maybe they don’t mesh well with the horse and think it would flourish more under a different trainer, maybe the horse is dangerous and they’re unwilling to take the risk, or maybe they’re concerned about the ethics of working a horse that might have physical problems that make training a risk to the horse’s wellbeing. Maybe there are edge cases, but not working with a horse because you didn’t earn a commission on it is just throwing a temper tantrum.

[BrendaJane]

you are not a horse.
you do not need to be handled.
Be the one asking questions (how else are you supposed to learn!) and to speak your mind!
I am quite sure there are other trainers out there who would be happy to work with you (and earn your money)
this fellow was at one time a small time trainer. Go find the next up and coming.
Start looking around, tire kick, small talk…
To some trainers the middle ground, one horse clients are not worth their time anymore.
They forget who made them.

Personally, I am not going to pay somebody to bust me out. That job is already taken. And I get those services free from my family. I’d rather be with a little less successful trainer who has decent manners and attitude.

[BrendaJane]

Oh, Ok.
However, if it is a lot of thing, childish isn not what springs to mind.
You have figured out what works for youm and if some days you need to cut a lesson short to process or calm down, that is actually quite fantastic. I find that very commendable. We often find ourselves pushed past the hard and fast boundaries. It is seldom productive.
It is a learning curve for the average instructor who does not have a packground in education. They have to feel themselves through the issue as well. I think you can find somebody willing to work with you without berading or belittling you.
Again, you are not a horse that needs ‘handling’

[DollyDoll]

Thank you, I didn’t expect so many kind words on such a big forum. I’ve never really felt that I fit in since I have some difficulties but thank you very much for what you’ve said.

I think I’ll look around at the next local show, maybe talk to some trainers see what their students and their methods are. Hopefully I kind find someone nearby and that won’t mind me having some little issues

[Scribbler]

If you are up front about your issues and can suggest ways to handle them in advance that will go a long ways in helping establish good relations with a coach.

You can say in advance that if xx happens you will say zz and request a time out to process or calm down or whatever. It isn’t you being disrespectful but you managing an issue.

Like if you were an old person with a bad back, you could say: I usually feel fine but sometimes I get back cramps. If that happens I will halt the horse for a minute to rest and then continue the lesson at slower work. It’s not me trying to bail out of work but managing a painful chronic condition.

Whatever the equivalent would be for emotional responses.

If you usually present as totally normal, that’s fantastic, but it also means people will be hurt and upset and even angry if you have an episode out of the blue.

[foggythistle]

You are the person buying the horse and paying for it. Whatever horse you buy should suit your needs, not the trainer’s needs (or desires). You have a finite amount of money to spend on this. Not a penny more.
Make a list of your must-haves, your wants (might be negotiable) and your definite don’t wants. Put it on paper to remind yourself. For example

Must cost less than XXXXX
The horse must be able to jump 1.1 at least
The horse has of show experience at 1.1 and has been successful at that level.
I must like riding the horse
I must feel confident riding the horse
The horse must not drag me to the fences
The horse must be controllable by me

I want a horse that is taller than 16.3hh (I say this is negotiable because would you really turn down a 16.2 horse that you had an awesome connection with and could jump the moon and was sound just because he was a little short?)
I want a horse that is between 6 and 10 years old (is it okay if they’re 11 or 12?)
I want a gelding (but would be okay with the ‘right’ mare)

I do NOT want a horse that can only jump once a week because otherwise they are unsound.
I do NOT want a horse that requires a pro (your trainer) to ride them in order for them to perform well.
I do NOT want a white horse (remember these are only examples)

Trainers looking to increase their commission will try to get you to fall in love with something that’s above your price range, maybe by inflating the price, with the hope that they can get you to spend more so they get a bigger commission.

With you searching on your own, and knowing the real/advertised price of the horse, that kind of limits how much of a commission can be padded onto the price as two trainers talk to each other.

I think you need to be clear with your trainer of what your needs and wants and don’t wants are. If he’s getting a commission for finding you this horse, he needs to be clear on what you want.

Be prepared that if YOU find something that YOU like and YOU buy it without him, he may not be quite so friendly about working with you. He got nothing out of the deal. He’s in this job to make money, and you just kept him from making some. You and he need to be clearly on the same page about what works for you and what doesn’t if you intend to stay with him (and he wants to keep you as a client)

He may want you to buy something not quite right for you but that might work for someone else he knows so that when you can’t ride it because it’s too much, you will pay him to sell it to someone else (where he can make another commission, probably from both sides!)

Remember - your money, your horse.

[TheDBYC]

Absolutely! That’s exactly what I was getting at. There’s a big difference between a trainer not wanting to work with a horse because they feel their strengths/weaknesses aren’t the right fit for that particular horse, or that the rider would be better served by another horse & being snippy because they won’t get a commission out of it.

[punchy]

Not too picky so much as not making sense. If you don’t mind one ‘super green,’ you can’t know if it’s going to pull to the jump, or know how it will react when you mess up (which you say you don’t want). You don’t want ‘rude,’ but you’re ok with rearing? Super green or super old— Which? In other words, your search criteria doesn’t make sense. Take a step back and re-evaluate what exactly you want.

[DollyDoll]

Oh by rude I mean I don’t want one that will stop at any jump he can like my current guy. I can do everything right and he’ll still refuse and send me flying lol If he jumps as long as I ride correctly I’ll like the horse.

And by super green I don’t mean one that hasn’t been backed up, I’m still not ready to start a horse, but I don’t really mind one on the younger side or one on the older, I’m not picky about age or experience

[CHT]

I wonder what your coach is telling his friends you are looking for. He may feel “burned” because you are turning down horses that fit the description he is giving his friends, and so they feel he is tire kicking. He also may just be trying to bully you into settling on one of those horses…horse shopping can be exhausting, and most coaches charge commission, so if he feels he is wasting his time, and not getting paid for that time, then it does make some sense he is frustrated.

Are the horses you went to look at, at least on paper, what you were looking for, or is there a difference between what your coach is showing you and what you are wanting?

Most of my students do the leg work themselves, but I go with them to look once they found something they are considering; maybe you could work out a similar arrangement with your coach? Be clear on if you are still paying him commission, or just paying for his time…it may actually help his attitude to your shopping if you just paid for his time rather than commission.

It is also possible that your coach has a different opinion of your skill level: he may not feel you are ready for as green a horse as you are considering - that can be a difficult conversation to have with a client. People rarely assess their own skills (or anxiety levels) honestly.

It would be very difficult in my area to find what you are looking for in that budget; tall horses tend to be expensive. I hope you do find something that works for you!

[DollyDoll]

Well no, on paper the horses he’s taken me to try are not really what I’m looking for. One mare, in particular, spooked me so bad because she was so sensitive the second I got on she started cantering without me even putting on leg but she was tall, healthy and never stopped at jumps, but she pulled like a mother trucker and was more sensitive than anything. There were also one or two horses i did like that he found but one was out of my price range and the other sadly didn’t pass the vet check.

I would go look but I know he’ll be pissed about it and refuse to come with me to check them out. tried it and he said I wouldn’t know what i was looking for, which I get why he thinks like that since I haven’t been riding long. But in at least in Mexico horses, tend to be cheaper, we’ve been going to pueblos since they are way cheaper there and I liked some but well i guess everwhere is different. Hopefully I kind find something soon

[Ruth0552]

Asking a lot of questions to understand how something works should not be annoying. Does your trainer yell a lot?

Also, “the best” trainer is not always the one that wins the most. There is likely another trainer that is a better fit for you that might not win as much because they don’t have as much money/horses.

[Classic]

Trainers are professionals. They are in the business to make money, among many other things. They have to make a living. Part of that living is sales and purchase commissions. Another part of their living is students with appropriate horses who do well together. Trainers need their peers to respect them, so that they can network for the best possible results for their students/owners. It is important that trainers communicate with trainers to access the abilities of each and rider and mount to find a good match. Riders aren’t the person to do that, unless at a certain level. Riders can hurt the respect of their trainers in the eyes of their fellow trainers in what they say/don’t say. Find a trainer you trust and rely on them. They will find what you need.

[TheDBYC]

@DollyDoll

Oh by rude I mean I don’t want one that will stop at any jump he can like my current guy. I can do everything right and he’ll still refuse and send me flying lol If he jumps as long as I ride correctly I’ll like the horse.

And by super green I don’t mean one that hasn’t been backed up, I’m still not ready to start a horse, but I don’t really mind one on the younger side or one on the older, I’m not picky about age or experience.

See I don’t think that’s “rude”. I think it is a horse that feels overfaced by the obstacle at hand with you riding him. And I don’t mean that in a negative way towards you. There’s just a rider confidence that can only come with having jumped a course of a certain height a 100 times, a 1000 times, 10,000 times. And the horse can feel it. Chances are, your current horse would not stop with someone who has ridden 100s of courses at whatever height it is. It is because that rider has a well-developed eye for jumping at that height & knows exactly how to ride to each of those jumps with pinpoint accuracy & is confident that the horse is physically capable of the task. For a horse that senses he’s coming close to the edge of his physical ability, this is everything.

Even among pros you will see this concept at work. I train with someone who is an excellent show jumper. She can get 99.9% of horses going confidently over things that 99.9% of us cannot. When HER trainer – who is towards the top of current world rankings – rides the same horse, there is still a noticable difference in the horse’s way of going. ( And he’s a kind, sympathetic rider, too. He’s not beating these horses to get them over anything.) Even the horses seem surprised by what they can do with him riding. It is all because he makes the horse think, “Well, if he’s sure I can, I’m sure I can.”

And you are being picky about age & experience. (And rightfully so, in my opinion.) It is just, as a previous poster pointed out, you’re expecting a combination of qualities to exist in one horse that are a 1 in 10,000 odds. Yes, you may find a young, green horse with the courage & athleticism to not stop over a 1.10 course even with an anxious rider who is just stepping up to that level. It will likely also be a fireball that pulls like a freight train & will scare you. It may also lose that confidence over time if you are not 100% comfortable. An older, top level horse is more likely to have the self-assurance necessary to proceed despite rider misgivings & to build your confidence up. Chances are, it will also require some maintenence & careful conditioning to keep it in top shape.

[DollyDoll]

Sometimes, he tends to try to not yell since people around our barn talk really bad about trainers that yell.

There is a trainer in my barn that I kind of like, he sometimes helps me out whenever he sees that me and my trainer fought again or if I’m riding alone because my trainer had to go due to personal business. He’s pretty good and nice but I don’t know if he’ll be able to handle me when I get kind of bad He has seen some of my worst fits but he still treats me kindly but I’m kind of scared to separate from my current trainer. Isn’t loyalty important?

[DollyDoll]

I do trust him! He’s taught me so much in such a short time and he can sort of handle my fits. It was just that he got frustrated and told me to find a horse by myself, so I did but then he got angry that I did so I got confused.

[DollyDoll]

I completely agree! Sometimes an unsure rider causes a horse to be unsure but I promise you my tiny horse isn’t like that, or at least in the beginning I used to be super confident when i got him, he’d throw me off at whatever jump he could, from 70cm to 1m, just because he could but I’d get back on, scold him, and go again. But over time i started getting really scared cause he knocked me out once in one of his fits so that’s where my confidence plummeted. Whenever my trainer rides him he of course completely changes but he still stops or runs out from the jump, he has gotten so much better after 2 years of having him and I’m a much better rider but I have lost almost all my confidence because he’s just a bit of a naughty horse. When I tried to sell him before he threw off two big men that were trying him out for their students. He’s much better now of course but if he can get away with naughty behavior he will seize the chance. I do agree though that my confidence is probably also affecting everything big time.

Oh yeah I completely get it! I don’t really mind if its an older or younger horse or if he’ll require maintenance as long as he’s all the other things that I want. I just want something to fit me and not go so fast I can’t stop him without almost burning my hands off.

[Night_Flight]

@DollyDoll

There is a trainer in my barn that I kind of like, he sometimes helps me out whenever he sees that me and my trainer fought again or if I’m riding alone because my trainer had to go due to personal business. He’s pretty good and nice but I don’t know if he’ll be able to handle me when I get kind of bad He has seen some of my worst fits but he still treats me kindly but I’m kind of scared to separate from my current trainer. Isn’t loyalty important?

What’s most important is that you have a trainer who suits your riding style and gives you confidence.

What is it about this other trainer that makes you doubt if they could handle you, especially if they have been kind and helpful to you in the past?

Sometimes trainer relationships just go sour, and rather than addressing it, some trainers will just grow more and more frustrated and hope that you will become miserable enough to leave on your own. It’s possible that your current trainer is simply not interested in continuing as your trainer, for whatever reason, and some of the behaviour that you’re experiencing is his way of saying that it’s time to go elsewhere.

[DollyDoll]

Well the other trainer is an older man, he actually trained my current trainer when he was younger, but since he’s sort of a no-nonsense trainer I don’t know if he’ll get frustrated when I get one of my fits or when I cry from getting overwhelmed by my own emotions or overloaded (I know its childish, promise I am working on it, autism can be frustrating). He even helped me out today when I went to ride alone and he saw me and offered to help me jump, we even got my guy to jump confidently over 1.20 with only two run-outs/refusals but we got his running a bit under control. Maybe I’m just a bit intimidated by him since he’s a bigshot in my barn and whenever I see his classes his students are all so well behaved and ask no questions and throw no fits so I don’t know if he could handle me. The only student of his I saw that had fits left after a couple of months even when he helped her jump really high pretty fast.

I hadn’t thought about it that way, you might be right. I have been feeling my trainer a bit distant but I thought I was imagining it.

[S1969]

@DollyDoll

I do trust him! He’s taught me so much in such a short time and he can sort of handle my fits. It was just that he got frustrated and told me to find a horse by myself, so I did but then he got angry that I did so I got confused.

It doesn’t sound like you trust him if you don’t like any of the horses he has chosen for you; or you have not clearly described what you want. Or (more likely) it is possible that he doesn’t think you are ready for the same horses that you think you are ready to buy.

I have a pretty stern coach in another sport. I trust him to make the right decisions for my training, but my end of that bargain means I have to do the workouts - no skipping, cheating, complaining, etc. It’s ok to question, but within reason. He’s the professional, not me. If I don’t trust that he knows what he’s talking about, I should find someone else that I do trust.

Also - I’m an adult - I’m not paying for someone to flatter me and take my money but not make me better…and I’m certainly not paying for someone to just be a dick to me.

There really isn’t anything else you can do but meet with your trainer and figure out where you are not seeing eye to eye. If he thinks your specifications are unclear - you need to be more clear. If he thinks your specifications are unrealistic - you need to either trust him, or find another trainer. I suspect from this thread that it’s not about the commission.