I'm not a trainer, but...

I started riding when I was three. I’m sure my mom gave me my first riding lessons, although I really don’t recall. The first pony I ever owned was Sundance. My fondest memories of that particular stinker revolve around a barn door with a piece of rope across the middle to keep the horses out and Sundance running a million miles an hour (with me on his back, of course), ducking under the rope to get into the barn, and clothes lining me off his back.

Then came Lori the paint pony, Bars the quarter horse with ringbone, Echo the bucker/bolter/confidence destroyer, Jiffy the rearer, and Zaz the wonder four year old with navicular in both front feet.

While all these horses where good in their own ways and taught me a lot (how to get bucked off, how to do the fastest emergency dismount around, how to go around the jump instead of over it, how to be the fastest rider back to the barn, etc. etc.) I didn’t really start riding a horse that I A) learned from and B) taught something TO until I got Darwin. By then I was halfway through getting my Equestrian Studies degree from Delaware Valley College.

We learn a lot from our horses as riders. People who ride well trained, well behaved horses can do more. That’s not to say they are necessarily better riders than the person hanging on by a thread to the bucking and rearing five year old thoroughbred in the corner, but hey, at least they’re getting OVER the fence.

We also learn a lot from our trainers. “Trainer” was a foreign concept for me when I went to college. As we all gathered in the barn, waiting for our orientation to begin, everyone started talking about trainers. My trainer studied under George Morris. My trainer showed Rolex two years ago. My trainer just got back from HITS.
Huh?

Who where these elusive trainers, and where did you get one? When I was growing up I took lessons once a week with my Pony Club from Karen who owned the nearest barn within a forty mile radius. Occasionally I even took private lessons (although, as I recall, those didn’t last very long). But she never came with me to my shows and although she was a fantastic instructor, I still don’t know what her qualifications where. I think I went to a jumping clinic once on Bars… except I don’t think he jumped. My mom taught me lessons at home, did that count?

In the eyes of my fellow riding peers, apparently not.

I was, to my mortification, a rider without a trainer. There was one other girl like me. She had grown up with horses in her backyard just like I had, learning more or less how to ride by herself like me with the occasional lesson and schooling show. I think she’s in Maryland right now, teaching at the Potomac Horse Center or something like that. She may not have had a trainer but man, was she gutsy. She was the first person to canter Darwin. It was on the wrong lead, but still. It counts.

At school I had three instructors. The one who taught me the most and who, most importantly, brought my confidence back up, was Angelo. All together I have probably had about two and a half years worth of formal riding instruction from an accredited instructor on horses who knew what a flying change was. My equitation is messy. I’m out of shape. I can’t see the distance to a fence to save my life and I’m still more timid than I should be (thanks, Echo)… but now I’m the instructor. Now I’m responsible for teaching 30+ kids a week about riding. Besides having graduated with a degree in Equine Studies, I’m not accredited in anything. I’ve never shown in any A shows. I didn’t even know what HITS was until four years ago.

Does that make me a bad instructor? I don’t think so. Does my experience qualify me to be called a “trainer?” I don’t believe so. My riders are never (at least with me) going to train for the Maclays. That’s not to say they are bad riders or I’m a bad teacher. Little over a year ago my most advanced class (when I inherited them from the last instructor) where jumping x-rails, had never heard of a lead change and wouldn’t have known what a good distance to a fence was if it had reached up and bit them. Now they’re jumping through 3ft grids, riding nice, solid courses with 6-8 fences, doing rollbacks, flying changes (on the horses here that do them), baby oxers, and are in the beginning stages of truly understanding collection.

I think the trick to being an effective teacher is to find your niche. I’ve certainly found mine, at least for now. I tell my older all the time that I teach better than I ride, and that’s very true. As I get older and take more lessons and attend more clinics that may change. Who knows? Like I said, I’m not a trainer… but I am a pretty good instructor for what I’m teaching (at least, that’s what my kids tell me).