I’m just giving you the reality, as are a lot of people here. You have a very long list of things you can’t do. I hope you find some way to work around them and find a situation that works for you.
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That was my first reaction too lol. Why had I never thought of that hahaha.
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You don’t have voicemail? Really? I didn’t know you could even get a cell phone without it?
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Do you know anyone who already rides in this area? Where do they ride? Could someone with an understanding of your skills reach out to their trainer or another trainer they know for a recommendation? I’m old friends (competed together as juniors) with a top rider in PA, and when my friend was looking for a place for her move, I reached out to her for a recommendation. Her particular program was not going to be a good fit, but I trusted her opinion. My friend also needed a full care and grooming program due to her job even though she liked doing a lot of things herself when she could find the time.
The horse world in general works on references. Whether you need a service provider (farrier, etc) or a chance of getting into a barn with a wait list or to have someone even give you the time of day to make an appointment at a barn, having a reference helps a lot.
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@Katherine1 The additional information about your riding abilities changes my idea of your skill set but I suspect you will still need some remedial work on jumping.
Don’t take your advice or guidance from junior’s moms. Take your advice from other active adult riders. The cycle, the system, the anxieties, are all different from a parent’s point of view and honestly most don’t have a very wide perspective on the scene, just what Darling Progeny is doing. And if they don’t ride and think it’s a kids’ sport they may be subtly undermining your desire to do so.
That said, hunters is the discipline of choice for wealthy juniors. More than any other English discipline, the hunter barns tend to package programs, take over horse care, facilitate expensive leases to reach specific rider goals, warm up and prep horses for riders at home and show, and charge the moon for all this. And be totally fixated on showing and getting ribbons. Obviously differs at different levels of competition.
But many adults who did hunters as juniors move on to jumpers or eventing or dressage later in life. These disciplines require and reward more autonomy in regards to horse care, training, and showing. Your coach cannot prep your horse in dressage! Of course some adults stay in hunters and it’s a good fit for those whose lifestyles and schedules require concierge service.
Most juniors even very good ones decrease or abandon riding in their 20s and 30s, as college, professional development, dating, marriage, small kids, urban life take over. Then they return in their 30s or 40s. Returning riders in their 30s here on COTH have complained about having no age peers in their barns, just juniors and older ladies.
The top juniors may go on to be working students, assistant trainers, paid riders as adults, and move into the pro/open class category.
All this is to say that you don’t need to avoid adult equitation or other classes because you’ll be beaten by the former junior eq medals winner. That’s horse show mom semi knowledge. The former junior eq medals winner is either a pro trainer, or a lawyer in NYC with two small children wistfully patting the Central Park carriage horses on the nose and wondering about buying 5 acres someday way out the commuter train line. Or is doing ammie eventing or dressage. I think the chance a top junior eq rider wants to hunt ribbons in adult ammie eq at age 45 may be slim. I think they are likely to want to move on.
As far as what medium to contact a given trainer, it’s a crap shoot. Different people use and prefer different platforms. I will say speaking as an adult professional older than you 
that my email use except for work related things has dropped to almost zero because it’s clunkier to access. Horse life has pushed me onto cellphone texting because it doesn’t require data and I can access it away from Wifi without using my data minutes. I also quite often will message someone on FB. You don’t need to be friends to message, at least not a business page. I have messenger lite on my phone.
There is no guaranteed way to get through to all busy trainers. I do think in general the very short message is best. I think an email longer than 3 sentences will get filed for read later, and never be read.
As far as getting caught up comparing yourself to others, in horses there will always be people who are better than you, and people who are worse than you, and the metrics are extremely complex. Is an old cowboy genius at ground work with mustang colts but a bit loose goosey in the saddle better or worse than this year’s faultless junior medal eq winner?
You can only start where you are, do your best, be globally interested in horsemanship as well as riding, and slowly improve. I watched a PBS/BBC program “Royals and Their Horses” years ago, and at the time Princess Zara had to step out of the current Olympics because her best horse was injured. It struck me that horses was an endeavor where money certainly helped but you still couldn’t buy your way out of every problem. Even if you were a legitimate princess of England. That I think is why it remains challenging for even the very rich, because it requires such complex skills and good judgement and also luck.
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But you said you don’t have social media or voicemail. This is getting weird! Plus where are you talking to parents of Juniors if you don’t have connections? I think COTH is being used for some horse magazine “woe is me” article research to be honest. The tagline will be “You work on commission don’t you? Big mistake, huge!!” 
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@Limerick Ohhhhh I like this hypothesis. Totally feels like we are getting trolled here but, to what end I couldn’t figure out. I had also caught the “I don’t have a social media presence but I learned about BNT’s who give lessons to randos from surfing the 'gram”
I’m still perplexed by the “I’ve decided I want to do h/j after watching equestriancoach.com vids and have a fat hundred g’s a year to spend on the sport, but also I really am not sure I’m going to like it so I’d like to just dip my toe in the pond on a BNT’s lesson horse for months on end. And also I have a bunch of things I absolutely refuse to do that would make me appealing as a client for someone who already has no problem filling their barn… so why won’t anyone take my money???”
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Yes, I agree this is getting weird. Also, I’m way too addicted to social media, and I’m not even aware of the post she was referencing about the big barn tour and instruction.
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Is it though? How sad that you have a tiny window of a chance for fun and then your “husband’s hobbies” will consume all your retirement time. What kind of hobbies take ALL the time?! Is he aware that he will be robbing you of your equine passion?
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Really. Some phones have settings that allow you to turn off voicemail, but the surest way is to contact your carrier and ask for the feature to be disabled.
You seem very well equipped to handle things in your life.
You appear to have a highly demanding and highly paying job. It’s so demanding that it leaves you exactly three hours a week of leisure time but it also affords you a $100k hobby slush fund.
You don’t have any free time but you also have a subscription to an equestrian video on demand channel. Even though you don’t ride?! You nonetheless got and use that subscription.
You’re exceptionally tech savvy even though by your own preference you are a Luddite. You only communicate via email. Never calls, never texts, never in person. Your job is so demanding that you can’t spend 10 minutes during a break or at lunch to text someone.
You both don’t have social media presence at all and have seen more posts there than the rest of us.
You don’t know any horse people except a whole bunch of linked in parents of juniors and some west coast trainers.
You’re quite knowledgeable about horses. You are very linked into costs and disciplines and current trends. Even though you claim to know next to nothing. For someone who has been out of it for decades you’re pretty savvy about how things work these days.
You’re a sea of contradictions but also seem pretty savvy about negotiating life. I’m lost as to why finding a place to ride is so challenging for you?
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Right. I think this is really the issue - the references and connections via a shared acquaintance, which I am lacking in this geographic area.
I did receive two recommendations from a trainer on the West Coast, but I’ve already reviewed their rate sheets and, even excluding showing, they are beyond my budget once you add an annual lease, which I am estimating will cost 50k or so.
If you have no competitions goals, only want to ride for a couple years before quitting to pursue your husband’s all consuming hobby full time, and can only ride three hours a week, max, I don’t think you need to lease a $50k horse.
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So the turn this discussion has taken is exactly why I do not have social media. The tone and speculation is silly. There is no conspiracy theory or hidden agenda to uncover here.
I’m just an average rider who happened to end up in a very horsey area for the first time in my life. We have clients whose children ride and it is their parents who are passing along information to me - including links to websites and whatever social media leads they find. My mother read COTH for years, which is how I know about the site.
I already stated that I do not have time for anything more than the actual riding. That means I need a full service barn. The two trainers I have been referred to are beyond my budget and close their barns before I am done with work for the day anyway. I figured surely there must be a tier of trainers just below that who are full service but accessible to adult professionals. If that’s not the case, that’s okay. I just didn’t want to miss the opportunity while I am here. Simple as that.
If what you’re looking for is to ride at a hunter barn for exactly an hour, horse tacked and untacked for you, at a full service barn that has a school horse for you for several months, yes, that does sound way more specific than what I think most of us thought you were originally asking for, and probably most “upper tier but not too upper tier” show barns either don’t offer such full service to non-horse owners or expect more of a commitment to the program than it sounds like you’re willing to make.
The text vs. email thing was personally enlightening for me–I guess I was on Team Email First (but more than willing to text) because I often messaged barns that had websites from 2010 and I was afraid of getting a landline, and some trainers did offer me their email first, texting only then their number after vetting me as a non-crazy person who wouldn’t blow up their phone at 7am! But from now on, I will text first if the website looks reasonably up-to-date and the trainer doesn’t advertise first and foremost with an email address.
OP, I think you need to ask yourself why you want to ride again. Even reasonably affluent people (unless they are crazy-rich) have to make considerable sacrifices of time to be involved with horses, and if the time margin is so slim for your own leisure, maybe it’s best to spend it doing other things.
I also run, and I find it both sad and funny how some people feel so guilty about how much time they spend training (versus spending it with their families or doing whatever around the house). Even someone training for a grueling race doesn’t usually do so for more than two hours a day, and horses usually take way more time, regardless of discipline.
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If the rate sheets you’ve gotten look like they would be within budget on a monthly basis, it would be worth having a conversation with those programs about what horse options might be available. Sure, leases in hunter land are expensive, but I also think you don’t need a 50k lease. If these trainers say that’s what it will cost for them to find you something suitable, then you have your answer. But it’s worth the conversation rather than a guess.
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Yes, it’s always worth reaching out and asking. Barns aren’t going to advertise online that a client is looking to lease out their beloved horse at a discount as long as the horse stays in the barn, but that happens all the time.
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You have a budget that should make it very possible to set up a lesson/lease horse and a schedule that should fit what you are discussing here, if you will be reasonable about where & with who. Honestly, where you are located, this should be extremely do-able - with some flexibility and ingenuity on your part.
I wonder if you aren’t getting in your own way a bit. And there is a reason for that, some part of your brain is trying to tell you “hey wait there is something else to consider”.
Maybe it is the time demands that you mention - but with your potential horse budget, there should be workarounds for that as you can afford extra help. There is nothing wrong with showing up, getting on, doing your ride, getting off and going home. There are top competitive amateurs who do just that.
Given your potential horse budget and demanding work schedule, I’m sure you are a high achiever by nature. Maybe you don’t want to do something if you can’t do it really well. And you are thinking you won’t hit that mark if you don’t give it more time. That’s up to you if you feel it’s worth doing, or not, in your present circumstances.
Maybe you’d like to stay in touch with the horse world but not dive in just now. I can relate to that!
Could you get a horse fix from volunteering at events in your area? You pick the weekend, pick the job that fits the time you want to give it, go do your thing, chat with people and make a few acquaintances and get an idea of the network … and then head home with no homework or further demands. You can do it as often or as seldom as you wish. Would that be easier than trying to juggle a riding schedule?
I get the feeling that you have a strong pull toward horses and riding, but your concerns about stretching your whole life too thin are interfering with a productive search. So many of us have been down that road. Keep an open mind about different ways to stay connected in a way that is realistic for you.
Also: Flexibility on your part will be key. I doubt you will find something that is exactly your ideal, so like everything, it’s deciding where you can compromise and where you don’t want to do that.
And: So many horse pros just do not do email any more. Just like riding, if what you are doing is not working: Change. You need to be more flexible in your communications strategy and that’s on you. I do think that texting is going to be the more productive channel to find the situation you need. But when you find a place of course it will depend on how that program does communications.
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This seems less and less like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Vivian just wanted to buy a dress. She didn’t have a long list of things she didn’t want and wouldn’t have time for. She wasn’t expecting the store to tailor to her very limited schedule and preferred methods of communication.
OP, in one post you say you just like being around horses and don’t even know if you really want to do HJ, but then you say you literally want to walk in, be handed the reins, ride, and then leave. That sounds contradictory. Why do you want to take HJ lessons? Do you want to show? It doesn’t sound like you have time. So…it’s kind of understandable why people are confused about your goals and might not be taking you so seriously when you reach out.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said you really aren’t sure what you want and that’s part of the problem. Julia Roberts’ character knew exactly what she wanted when she walked into that store in Pretty Woman.
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If you have truly done all that you say you have in your area - capping with hunts, lessons on prelim horse with big dressage and event trainers, clients with children who ride hunters, etc. - then you should have made sufficient contacts to have some solid leads. Perhaps you give off the wrong impression and need to work on your people skills - high maintenance, overbearing, too picky or negative.
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