This is an honest question. Is it so hard to be nice? To be supportive? I have had several conversations in the last month (all with different people) about how unkind some of their past trainers have been. Apparently one even went so far as to tell her student to just stop riding because she was ruining her horse. Now I know that we have all had bad rides, and days where you get off your horse and just want to give up, but part of the trainers job is to offer encouragement on those hard days. Even in the worst rides you can find something positive, even if it is "well at least you didn't get bucked off".
So I am completely baffled when I hear stories of trainers who beat up on their students, yell at them, tell them what a bad job they are doing. How is this helpful?? How is this helping to get your student past the rough spots? Do you want them to stop riding and then you lose a client? It does not even make good business sense. Nowhere in the job description for "horse trainer" will you find the words therapist and cheerleader, and yet that is such a big part of being a good trainer. Their are countless comparisons that can be made between the challenges of learning to ride and the challenges of life but the one I am making today it that a bad trainer, one who is unsuportive or degrading to you, is no better than having an abusive boyfriend. They will take your money, your time, and your emotional health and leave you with nothing more than a feeling of being unconfident and inadequate. So my two cents worth of advice to the students of the horse world today is that no matter how amazing or talented you think your trainer is, if you go home from your lessons feeling like crap over and over again, it is time to look for a new trainer.
So lets take a quick poll. Have you ever left a trainer because they were not nice to you?
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