YES. I leased a horse that a lot of people in the barn considered “made.” And he was, in the sense that he was sane and I didn’t have to worry about bucking or bolting or other shenanigans. But getting correct work out of that horse was HARD. He was a very difficult ride from a technical standpoint, and I put a lot of time and effort into figuring out how to get the best out of him. There are definitely push-button rides out there, but there are a lot more riders working hard to make their horses LOOK like push-button rides.
11 Likes
I would also say that parents have changed over the years.
As a retired teacher, you could see the shift to helicopter and even snow plow parents. Some want their kids to succeed and be competitive and are not overly concerned about foundations.
Ironically, this helps the kids even less and puts a lot or pressure on them.
I agree that more programs ought to include some horsemanship - but I am not convinced that is what parents, who are footing the bill want to pay for.
I would be interested to see what kind of program Leslie offers…
5 Likes
Question- would the article stop you from attending a clinic taught by Mrs. Law?
4 Likes
Absolutely not. She is a phenomenal instructor.
3 Likes
Absolutely. I certainly wouldn’t want to spend a great deal of money to ride with someone who’d then turn around and write an article about me and all my failings.
31 Likes
Nope. She found out about the article by reading it and it wasn’t exactly hard to put the two together that she was the useless rider with no clue who’s daddy had bought her a robot horse.
1 Like
Was the rider those things, or was the rider a quiet internal type with a horse that might be push button over fences but isn’t there on the flat? I know quite a few people who’d purchased horses from Europe or Ireland or etc and once they get them home they realize that those horses have been schooled to canter and jump a fence the size of a bus but they aren’t exactly “broke” so there’s a lot of flat work to catch up on and probably a good reason to attend a clinic.
21 Likes
I’m into my sixth decade of riding. I can recall this argument about declining knowledge and skills mumbling on for just as long. Things just aren’t like they used to be.
Now we have horses sound and still in work into their twenties, horses don’t die from diseases that are now easily treated by specialist veterinarians, horses no longer commonly have white marks on their withers from ill-fitting saddles, nutrition is a world apart - when did you last feed your horse eggs and beer?
What hasn’t changed, unfortunately, is the strange belief that people should suffer for the privilege of being around horses - the barn rat working for nothing, being yelled at and belittled by adults, the working student totally exploited by a trainer or, at worst, hopeful children being preyed upon for sex by some man who has access to horses.
48 Likes
No, I want to ride with her and or her husband lol
Dominique’s rebuttals and posts she has made in response to this, on various sm threads has been respectful, well spoken, empathetic and understanding. She has eloquently presented her side of the story, as has the trainer of the other girl (who was on an OTTB, that she trained herself, and her parents have never.spent a dime according to the trainer)
Lesley took her post down. Didn’t address it. Didn’t say, hey, I was mistaken, my bad.
Imho, it says A LOT about both parties.
32 Likes
So Lesley writes that in her 20s, she was ‘fairly terrible’ at dressage but got by on her chutzpah. Why didn’t she learn dressage better in her 20s? Was she bored by it? To read her criticizing two young women for not being good on the flat but jumping perfect is a little hypocritical. I think older people forget what they were like when they were younger.
26 Likes
Perhaps she didn’t feel mistaken. She didn’t name names and is entitled to her opinion. One that has been around for so long that it’s a norm (“the youth of today, moan, gripe”)
3 Likes
How awful 
2 Likes
I don’t know if this has been posted, but the young rider outed herself in the comments to Lesley’s article, so permission given in effect. If you read Lesley’s article, she didn’t identify the clinician or the riders, just said they were young and bored.
2 Likes
That’s not how consent works.
17 Likes
Really, consent for what? In the first article, she is unnamed; in the rebuttal she is named and her words are used to rebut Lesley’s statements about her. I guess I am unclear about the line being crossed. Could you clear that up for me?
3 Likes
That’s not how permission works.
One can wax poetic about the state of young people today all day long without giving details that point to a specific young person. There aren’t exactly a lot of clinics in that area with clinicians and attendees as described.
9 Likes
She didn’t identify the rider or clinician by name, but there were a lot of identifying comments made in that article. A random joe schmoe might not be able to identify the rider, but the people who are in her circle, or even just adjacent to her circle would likely be able to identify her. The horse world is just not that big.
It’s like those HR surveys that they promise will be anonymous. But then they post it publicly and, at least for anyone who’s opinion matters, it only takes knocking together 2-3 brain cells to figure out who’s who.
9 Likes
Like most “kids these days” rants, it doesn’t work because it’s just not one size fits all. Yes, there certainly are some kids, esp. in H/J, with rich parents, perfect horses, and no horsemanship skills. There are also plenty of Pony Club kids learning more than the majority of horse owners will ever know, and still barn rats and working students who learn as they go. That’s the answer to who will train the horses. Also, the rich kids always have time to learn these skills later in life, so you never know.
Am I the only one who is thinking that a $3k OTTB (I’m assuming straight off the track) 20 years ago must have actually been quite nice? Both of my current two were less than that price combined. In fact, now that I think about it, I’ve never paid $3k for the purchase price of a horse.
There’s always going to be someone out there who has more money than you, or a nicer horse than you, or is having a better day, or or or or……the list goes on. There are absolutely spoiled brats out there. There are people out there who have nice horses who pack them around, sure. But then to go and say “oh but who will train the horses?” (Implying everyone out there is now like this) is a far stretch, IMO.
Additionally, I sure hope nobody ever reads that much into my facial expressions in a clinic. I have RBF by nature. If I’m focusing on listening, I’m surely not going to also be focusing on how my face looks just in case someone is watching me thinking that I’m not paying attention. FFS.
25 Likes
