The things I hate most about the horse industry…

Well, this is my blog, and it can be about whatever I want, right? It’s on you whether you read it.

I can only write about having my life turned upside down and rebuilding it for so long before even I need a break. So today, let’s talk about something different. Let’s talk about the things I hate most about my job.

Newsflash: it isn’t the clients. It isn’t the horses. And it isn’t the paycheck.

As much as I hate to say it, quite often, it’s the people in the industry.

Before everyone loses their minds, there are incredible horsemen and horsewomen in this business. Some of those people I call my good friends. Some of the best people I know have dedicated their lives to these animals.

But there’s also a whole lot of bullshit.

And if you’re reading this, great. Just know that this is my opinion—one I believe is fair and warranted. At times, it may come across as harsh, but if you feel personally attacked by it, there’s a decent chance you’re part of what I view as the problem. - But again, this is just my opinion. 

1: Horses are treated like machines. 

Horses are animals. 

If you are a trainer and you have written an ISO post on Facebook that says, “Can’t stop, can’t spook, always jumps,” I hate you and I think you’re dumb. 

People talk about horses like they’re machines. They’re not. They have opinions, preferences, fears, and individual personalities.

Every single day, they tell us the same things:

“I like this.”

“I don’t like that.”

“That scares me.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t understand.”

When you ignore those conversations for long enough, eventually the horse says, “Enough.”

Yes, even the one advertised on Facebook as the horse that “always jumps.”

Usually, when the horse finally says enough, people suddenly label it as “bad.”

As trainers, one of our greatest responsibilities is matching horses with riders. For anyone outside the horse world, let me explain how insane that responsibility really is.

We take an animal that weighs more than a thousand pounds, pair it with someone’s child, and then ask the two of them to jump obstacles while trusting one another enough to do it safely, (And chances are only one of them knows what they are doing, maybe). When that partnership works, it is beautiful. When the communication breaks down, people can get hurt.

I cannot decide exactly how a horse will react in every situation. I cannot make every horse love every rider, and I cannot force confidence where fear exists.

What I can do is understand a horse well enough to evaluate its character, temperament, education, and level of experience. I can anticipate the situations a rider may place that horse in and predict how the horse is likely to respond.

I can choose the right temperament for the job. I can build confidence. I can teach communication.

But I cannot rewrite the story that the horse has already lived. I cannot take away experiences. 

Here’s the part most people don’t think about: the majority of so-called “bad behaviors” are created by people.

Why doesn’t that horse trust anyone? Because somewhere along the way, someone taught it not to.

Why does it panic in a particular situation? Because it learned that something bad was about to happen.

Someone wrote those chapters.

Now it becomes my job to convince the horse that the story can have a different ending.

2: Temper Tantrums

I’m not talking about correcting a horse or enforcing discipline. Horses need clear expectations, and sometimes those conversations are not particularly gentle. That is training.

I am talking about anger: the random explosion, the emotional outburst, and the punishment that teaches absolutely nothing.

In those moments, the horse has no correct answer. There is no lesson. The rider is not educating the horse; they are simply taking their frustration out on an animal that does not understand why.

There is a massive difference between correcting a horse and abusing one. Despite what some people would like you to believe, it is not a fine line. It is actually pretty obvious.

Every time I witness one of those moments, I wonder what that horse experienced before today. How many times has someone blamed it for mistakes that were not its own? How many times has it been punished because a rider lacked the skill, patience, or emotional control to explain what they wanted?

Horses do not wake up in the morning trying to ruin your day. They are responding to the information we give them—or to the lack of it.

Why don’t they trust? Because they were taught not to.

Why do they react that way? Because every time they responded a certain way in the past, someone did something predictable in return.

Horses remember patterns, and people create those patterns. Then, somehow, the horse gets blamed for learning them.

But further to the detriment of our sport - The child you are teaching that this is the correct way to treat a horse, or that they somehow deserve it - makes me sick. - That's our future. Don’t feed them your narrow minded insecurities.

3: Ego 

I have never met someone who was genuinely confident and still felt the need to convince everyone else how good they were.

Insecurity is loud. It talks about other trainers, tears down other programs, and pretends to know everything. Genuine confidence does not need to do that.

The smartest people I know are willing to say something incredibly simple when they are asked a question they cannot answer:

“I don’t know.”

Then they go find someone who does.

That is not weakness. That is professionalism.

No one can know everything. But if you don’t have the answer, go find it. Read, ask questions, call someone who will know the answer, and work harder than anyone else until you know. 

Drive matters far more than pretending.

The people who believe they already have all the answers usually stop learning. That is when they become dangerous.

4: Fake Trainers 

This one is uncomfortable, but it needs to be said.

Somewhere along the line, our industry decided that spending time around horses automatically qualified someone to train them.

“I rode the three-foot hunters twenty-five years ago.”

“My daughter showed for years.”

“I’ve owned horses forever.”

That’s great.

It does not make you a trainer.

Training horses is a profession. It requires understanding the horse. The timing, feel, biomechanics, psychology, learning theory, and an understanding of movement. It means recognizing pain before it becomes behavior and knowing when to push, when to change your approach, and when to leave a horse alone.

Most importantly, it requires understanding the horse standing in front of you—not the horse you wish it was, but the horse it actually is.

What confuses me is not that people don’t know everything. None of us do. What confuses me is how comfortable some people are pretending they do, especially when the horse is the one who pays the price.

These are the same people matching riders with horses and writing ads that say:

“Never stops.”

“Never spooks.”

“Anyone can ride it.”

Let me tell you something: that horse does not stop today. That horse does not spook today.

That is not because I know some magical trick, and it is not because I whispered something into its ear. It is because the horse has been given confidence more often than it has been given failure.

Every ride should teach the horse that trying is safe, confidence is rewarded, and a mistake will not immediately be met with anger or fear.

That is training.

Real training is not forcing a horse to obey. It is teaching a horse that you are worth trusting.

You cannot promise that a living animal will never stop, never spook, or never react. You can only evaluate the horse standing in front of you, understand the education and experiences it has had, and continue giving it reasons to trust the person on its back.

And you should not train horses if you have not dedicated your life to trying to understand them.

That’s my truth.