06/11/2024
HORSES IN TRAINING…
You pay that hefty training bill for the month.
You look to have you horse in training as little as possible so it doesn’t break the bank.
You’re disappointed when after 30 days or 60 days or 90 days, there’s still more work to be done or the goal hasn’t been met. Worse yet, it looks good, you take the horse home and it unravels piece by piece. All that money “wasted”.
When you pay a trainer, that money isn’t paying for a result, it’s paying for someone’s skilled effort.
At least for me, when someone gets unhappy that their horse “isn’t fixed yet”, or comes “untrained” after it’s been home a while, makes the task of training horses for other people, discouraging. Discouraging because the efforts are being made, usually my best efforts that are filled with compassion, determination and lots of ruminating on how to fix complex issues a horse may have. Their disappointment becomes my failure basically. I know that’s not an actual truth but it’s never rewarding when someone is disappointed due to their own expectations.
Training a horse is NOT like being a mechanic on a car. Its not a tune up, it’s not the simple replacement of a part. It’s an animal with thoughts, feelings, emotions, habits, talents, etc. You don’t just program them, tune them up or replace a faulty part and send it back good as new.
You arent paying for results to happen within your timeline, you are paying for the time it takes to reach a desired result. The more complicated the project, the bigger the investment. The more baggage a horse has, the more effort it takes to unravel the mess. The bigger the goal, the greater the investment.
People send their horses to certain trainers because they want the outcome that trainer proves they can achieve. The problem is, people want that result in the shortest time frame possible because time, again, is money. It takes the time it takes to create the vision and time costs money. People who have a diy mentality, value the effort so much more when they themselves invest their own energy into a horse rather than just paying for it. I really feel that those who do it themselves, come to appreciate the efforts it takes far more than those who sign the check.
Be nice to your trainers, they work hard for you and your horse!
Written by: katy Negranti
Katy Negranti Performance Horsemanship
