I appear white but I am a minority, and not by marginal percentages. English is my first language, but I grew up in a bilingual household. I am average. I am neurodivergent so the blanket answer to most of those questions is no. I was born with a physical defect that is a daily struggle but is a cake walk in comparison to what others cope with. I have full form PTSD. Does substance abuse count as a disabled adult? Probably not, but I’ve carried Naloxone with me like an epi pen since I was a child.
I’m the person people don’t think struggle. Frankly, I don’t think they’d care and it shouldn’t make a difference. I want to have opportunities and successes because I’ve earned them and not because someone felt bad for me or thought I needed an olive branch. Do I wish it was easier, sure, but I’m doing the best with what I have and i choose to put my energy into opportunities rather than complain about how life isn’t fair to me.
I have plenty of sympathy for people who are struggling or who have gone through terrible things. I don’t have sympathy for people who let themselves become stagnant without taking responsibility for their life.
I’m not so sure about that… huge holes in the foundation seems more and more common theses days, and I don’t mean just in the unmounted side of horses. We have a whole generation of riders riding made horses their entire junior career, and now they are hanging up a shingle. There’s a good chunk of them who don’t have a serious relationship with good foundational skills, it’s unlikely they can teach what hasn’t been deeply ingrained in their own background. Obvs it’s not EVERY trainer or rider, but it’s not like this little dramatic tale of angst wasn’t something that we haven’t heard over and over and over (albeit with more tact) from people in a very good position to understand both the strengths and weaknesses of the next generation of riders.
And if you really want to be depressed, we were having this same conversation with driving clinician based in the Netherlands last winter, and I made the mistake of saying at least it wasn’t like this in Europe. Nope. They are having the EXACT SAME CONVERSATION. Kids getting handed the reins by grooms and off to the show ring.
I’m sure there are plenty of trainers that will make an effort to be better, and will pass it on to their students, that’s just as much human nature as our least desirable traits. But more than ever, riding students are starting from a knowledge hole and never really getting out of it, and that’s sad.
Yeah, I used to be like that. Then I realized that most of the people I labeled that way were struggling with issues I could not see. We can’t know what “success” looks like for others. For some, getting out of bed in the morning and eating a good breakfast is as hard as holding down a couple of jobs is for others. The older I get the more I realize that judging others isn’t my job.
“Back in my day…” LOL. I did not use Velcro wraps for my USPC Ratings Now, as an examiner, I’ve seen several candidates go back to old school! I still have all of my flannels, cheesecloth cotton, and bandage pins in the depths of my trailer.
For this article/the rebuttal. I can’t really wrap my head around LL since her comments on the addition of MERs for those living anywhere other than area 2 or 3… when she said (I’m paraphrasing) that if you are serious about moving up, you just need to move to an area with more venues. To me, that really indicates entitlement and a lack of respect for the amateur, who HELLO are the foundations of our sport. As someone who had to give up riding full-time in order to pay my bills… that stings. Now I live in the heart of Area 2, but teach clinics out west pretty often, and let me tell you how dedicated those folks are to go to a clinic let alone competitions 12+ hours away. So I have very mixed feelings about this article based on that alone. I do feel like there is an absence of correct fundamentals, knowing how to correctly produce a horse (let alone a difficult horse), and a lack of quality instruction. I also attribute it to the decline in USPC enrollment (horse management galore), since pony club isn’t as flashy as young riders or upper-level competitions.
However, I do feel like there is a rising degree of entitlement among both parents and kids alike. I see it both in the school classroom and in the arena teaching lessons. Perseverance is becoming a lost art, and “failing” is to be avoided at all costs (enter the era of participation trophies, and get a “50%” even if you never handed in the assignment). I have been ripped a new one on multiple occasions because Little Susie failed… either in the classroom or at the competition. Rather than look at what Little Susie did or did not do, it is far easier to blame the trainer/teacher or the horse. Has it always been like this… yes. Is it getting worse or more prevalent… yes. There are still barn rats like myself that grew up with the free horses and produced them, who work off and barter for as much as they can… just fewer and farther between.
When I was a teenager (I know more “back in the day” but bear with me) not very many of us had our own horses. Usually those that did had them at home at a very basic set up and we bombed around the fields and did pony club. Maybe your rich friend boarded at a barn but they really wanted to be out with their friends who were barebacking across the country side. Fancy shows were few and far between.
Kids had to work in the barns and learn if they wanted rides. Parents either couldn’t afford to or wouldn’t shell out the money for a horse.
That’s changed now. Almost all the kids who ride own their own horse. So why would they hang around to learn things or do work when they don’t have to. Horse, board, lessons etc is paid for by mom and dad. No need to put in extra effort or hours. No need to learn, someone is paid to do that.
Coaches and trainers are stretched thin so they don’t have time to supervise and teach things on the side either.
I don’t disagree with you. We should shower those people with kindness and patience just as we should anyone else. If brushing their teeth is their win for the day, that’s amazing! If they expect more from their life, they still need to do more - it’s pretty simple and pragmatic.
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be some type of reform to improve the socioeconomic climate - there absolutely should. My point is there is an overwhelming lack of determination fueled by the discrimination of others. You can feel sorry all you want, but it’s not yours or the governments sole responsibility to make that persons life better - there is a large factor of personal accountability.
Yeah, you just disagreed with me. But since this doesn’t have much to do with the OP nor do I think we’re going to convince each other of anything, I’m going to just mosey along.
I don’t entirely disagree, although I grew up with people who did own their own horses and never did we fit your description. Maybe our back in the day was a bit further back, but we were all middle class and we were young enough that it wasn’t legal to hire us, so most of our horse expenses were not paid by us. Sure we worked off stuff, but realistically that wasn’t the whole nickel. But we LIVED at the barn, we held fun shows at the barn almost every holiday (ride a buck! pick up races, so many ways to get killed), we all rode our horses to the local Wednesday night clinic at the local show facility during the summer. It was FREE and there would be 4 classes with about 30-50 horses per class (eq, pleasure, a 50-50 eq/pleasure class and command), with everything from horses who went to Congress to my sister’s 9’3 hand shetland, rocking her '70’s California western pleasure style (think rommel reins). When we weren’t doing that, we were feral.
But there’s lots of good reasons we ended up in this place… loss of land, rising costs of a sport that was never that cheap on its best day, kids being overbooked in other activities, the improved bottom line of trainers just focusing on lessons, and of course, the fact that buying a made show horse for a client (or several) is just better for the bottom line for most trainers.
Obviously there are trainers who recognize the problem, but they still have bills to pay as well, so even the ones who would work on the foundational aspects of horsemanship are under the same pressures to give more lessons and/or push clients into the show program.
That was my take. The OP was at once self-aggrandizing and self-pitying, and most of the article seemed to be her telling us just how wonderful she is.
Until she got to the part where she started running others down.
I have seen a few of this writer’s posts and comments, and one in particular stuck in my mind. She had not been selected for the Olympic team and was in a snit about it.
So she went on to denigrate the horse of one of the other riders who was selected. As if it needs to be pointed out, the horse qualified.
IMO NO true horseperson trashes a horse especially out of pique and jealousy. The definition of classless.
And those good sponsors she wishes would “adopt” her, or other owners looking for a good rider for one of their horses, may also have been reading those comments, and this latest effort and would not want to have their horse in the hands of someone who behaves publicly in this way.
I apologize if I missed this mentioned elsewhere but I’m surprised no one has pointed out that this whole discussion feels kind of misplaced??
The article was saying that people just buy made horses and never learn to ride and therefore there will be no “real riders” to train horses in the future. But it hinges entirely on the idea that these riders who can afford $XXX,XXX+ made horses intend to go pro in the first place.
In my experience, most riders who can afford the made horse aren’t the ones who end up becoming trainers anyways. They turn into adult amateurs who continue to buy made horses (or put unmade horses into full training). I’ll grant that my sample size is small, but the trainers I know are mostly all people who wanted to work with horses so bad they would take on a thankless, grueling job for very little pay - hardly the image of a glamorous billionaire’s daughter who never had to work a day in her life to ride horses. They’re people who probably would not be able to ride much if at all if it wasn’t their business.
Contrast that to the top level riders who come from significant financial means, it doesn’t matter if they have the skills to train a horse (not saying they don’t, just that it’s irrelevant) because they weren’t planning on making it their career anyways!
Of course all this is with broad strokes here, and there will be exceptions, but I just generally think the whole argument is somewhat moot. Or maybe I’m just wrong.
I don’t think the wealthy junior who sits at the top of the heap both in talent and financial resources is likely to set up shop teaching up downers… But that junior is the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. The majority of riders aren’t at that level or taught by people at that level, it’s the rest of the iceberg, that local to rated program, and who is teaching that impacts a lot more students.
The middle of the pack trainers (lots of locals, some rated, maybe pony finals) I see putting up a shingle came out of a program that was pretty typical middle of the pack: lessons and showing. They probably had a horse and as one of the better riders in this small pond, got a lot of catch rides. They are good riders, but in their time as a student not a lot of attention was paid to how to train a problem horse, starting a horse, figuring out if a green horse has potential, never mind stable management. I’m not saying all those riders hang up a shingle, but the ones that do are the pipeline for trainers of a lot more first time riders and horse purchases than the upper echelon ever will.
Yanno how BNTs have been writing those hand-wringing articles about where the next generation of pros will come from (since they are taking checks from the parents of juniors who just meet them at shows) for the past 25 years? Those birds are coming home to roost:
A young-ish pro where I live, who has a pretty good-sounding résumé from H/J world is now getting sued for letting a horse die while tied up (supposedly, head way elevated, like you’d see done to a Western Pleasure Horse). According to the complaint, the horse would not load, so the pro tied it this way, presumably to teach it something about loading, and went to the show. The horse was later found dead, with evidence of struggle. There are other elements to the complaint that let you know that the owner/plaintiff couldn’t let this go as just a terrible accident.
But my point is that there was a ton of bad horsemanship involved. And, IMO, that comes from the lack of depth of knowledge that gets built in to the people who were rich enough as juniors to create the record that would allow them to hang out shingles now.
I grew up around people who taught horses to tie and fixed bad loaders and also knew how to have a skillful Come To Jesus Meeting with a horse who had basic questions about whether or not he had to accept training at all. Today, those guys are hard to find. They are also the “cowboys” that the English show people want to send their recalcitrant (or overfaced, confused, misunderstood, recently-imported) WBs to. The “cowboys” don’t get the credit or the money that the show-going trainers do. But they do get called into clean up the training messes that these other pros make. And believe me: That is harder and more dangerous than starting a colt the right way.
I learned from those guys, along the way while I was trying to become a Hunter Princess. I’m a lowly amateur whose name and picture will never appear in the “Chronicle of the Horse.” But, goddamn, I know enough to not kill a horse this way.
I think this sentiment among those of us who know better, but don’t get credit for that (and our feeling that way on behalf of the “cowboys” whose work respect) get pissy.
OK, but the article appeared in a national magazine, And the Accused outted herself in the comments there. Honest-to-God, this could have slid by unnoticed except by a local few had the Accused not made it A Thing.
I think you make some very good points, but I have to point out that some (stressing ‘some’ not all) of those cowboys are the same ones who also do things like snub a horse up tight in a stall or in the arena, with no hay or water - for days - to ‘teach them’ submission., Who have an arsenal of terrifying bits and who teach/force horses to go in an unnatural slog (slow jog) and 4 beat canter.
I had a neighbor like this who I don’t think was an exception.
What are his students learning, and what do they pass on to the next generation?
I guess it is really all the "Accused " fault for not only being a terrible rider but speaking out. She should have just kept her mouth shut and let someone complain about “kids these days”
I am referring to the post by MVP blaming the rider for not staying silent.
Agree or disagree with the article about the state of Kids These Days, I strongly disagree with the industry standard of staying silent. Why fault the rider for not stay silent but praise the trainer for doing the opposite? Why is one allowed to speak out but the other isn’t? Because one is older and one younger? Because one is a pro and the other is an ammy?
I think the example you cite is just abuse, flat-out. Abusive horsemanship, alas, is not something that just began recently, and it’s not just ignorant young well-heeled trainers who have been guilty of this.
