11/27/2024
Written by Moore Horsemanship;
The Truth!
Probably one of the most difficult things for me as a horse trainer is when I gain a new hater. It’s actually something I’m working on, to not let it affect me too much. While I want to be the type of person that cares, sometimes it won’t matter what I do, that person is going to dislike me. And to be a little more specific I’m going to just talk about clients that end up deciding I’m not worth the dirt on my boots.
Last year I trained a horse for a person, probably one of the best horses I started all year. Heck I was pretty happy and dang sure proud of that horse. But despite how I felt...I believe I lost that client and that client was one of my least happy clients of the year. I actually considered that person a friend until not long after they got their horse home. If I had to guess that client may very well hate me and be telling people what a lousy job I did with that horse.
Now from where I was sitting, that horse was as smooth as butter on a warm biscuit when it came to training. Very little resistance and wanted to be good. But the client got the horse home and couldn’t bridle it, and couldn’t work a gate from the horses back. So being a typical person they figured it wasn’t them, and they sure weren’t going to blame fluffy, so it had to be that dang trainers fault!! What this client didn’t realize is that they didn’t want c**t starting, they wanted c**t finishing. They wanted this horse to fill in any and all gaps when it came to their poor timing and feel. Well when it comes to getting a horse used to poor timing and feel I’m not your guy. I don’t offer that to a horse very often.
Also, when you take a horse home and try to work a gate, we need to realize that to the horse this is a brand new thing. Yes, he has worked two different gates at my house, but in his brain he hasn’t generalized that all gates are the same. This is the seasoning part of horse training. It takes time, and new, but similar scenarios before a horse generalizes that this is, in fact, the same thing we’ve done before.
In all c**t starting scenarios there’s going to be some time that it takes for a horse to get used to the way you offer things. You will offer things to that horse in a different way than the trainer did. Just like if your friend rode the horse he would also offer a different feel to that horse. With time and consistency a horse can figure out that even though it’s a slightly different feel, we want the same response. That’s why we recommend lessons. As riders we can help bridge the gap for the horse so he understands what the new rider wants. Be patient, spend time and effort allowing you and your horse to get on the same page. Whether your horse is finished or not, it’s going to take time for the two of you to be dancing to the beat of the same drum.
Another thing that I found interesting is that some of the toughest cases I’ve had, ended up leading to some of the happiest clients. These were the horses that I was not at all happy with where they were at in their training when they went home. But it was like I blew the socks off of these clients they were so impressed! So it turns out that not all clients are created equal. I like the realistic clients that understand horses are living, breathing, thinking animals. Just like us, there isn’t a perfect one out there. They don’t expect to get a push button, kid safe, and perfectly obedient in every way, type of result. Horses have good days and bad days just like us. And their progress looks more like the stock market than a perfectly straight upward rise.
If I really sat down and tried, I could name off several clients that no longer like me. Sometimes it’s timing, or bad luck, or they brought me a very tough horse and expected a unicorn in return. As tough as it is to overcome being disliked by people it is just another piece of my personal development journey. If a person is going to do anything worthwhile in life they are going to acquire haters. Sometimes the more haters you have, the more successful you are becoming. At the end of the day it’s not my job to fix how other people feel about me. It’s my job to be the type of person that I’m proud to be. To sit down and criticize myself, praise myself, hate myself, and love myself. I try to love where I am but also know where I’m going and know where I’m growing.
The balance between self criticism and self praise is never going to be 50/50, but make sure it comes from the conversations within you, and not the conversations happening without you.
Copied and pasted from
Moore Horsemanship 2021.
Horse training. Breaking, starting, and fixing problem horses.Horsemanship lessons. TIP Trainer for This is a privately owned training facility.
