“Does training horses take the joy out of your riding?” This question has been asked of me by different people in different ways, but the most recent interrogator hit me in the middle of a tough week and the question sat in my mind like a teenager playing Xbox. Not really doing anything but taking up valuable space and every time I wondered to that area of my brain, it looked up and mumbled something about a glass of water. So I decided it was time to get it off the couch and address the question so it could leave.
Not a good way to start the day.
It may seem like a silly question especially to the young child dreaming of being a professional horse trainer. Yet, at some point in most training careers you will hit a batch of tough minded or horribly spoiled horses that will test you to the core. There has not been a horse yet that has come in for training that didn’t need training, but some need LOTS more than others and it is those horses that tend to make you question yourself and your motives.
Part of the issue is that many horse owners think that the trainer has a magic wand they can wave over the horse and not only make their horse the perfect trail mount in 30 days, but also make the horse stay that way no matter what they do to it. They place extreme expectations on not only the trainer, but also the horse. You see they have been successfully spoiling their horse and perfecting all it’s bad habits for years and now they think those same vices can be stopped, erased and reprogrammed in mere weeks. I never get tired of reminding people that it takes a human 2000 repetitions to stop a habit, 2000 repetitions to make a new habit and 10,000 correct repetitions to make a thought an unconscious behavior. So when the horse absent mindedly steps on your foot or knocks into your shoulder because he wants to look at something over his shoulder, he has disrespected your space a minimum of 10,000 times. Sobering thought.
Point being? When an unruly spoiled or tough minded horse comes in for training and the owner has the idea their horse just needs a little tune up expecting the trainer to fix their mistakes in weeks; it puts a huge burden on the trainer. The trainer may try to please the owner and find the horse not only refuses to work at that speed, but will start retaliating to the training with sometimes dangerous consequences to the trainer.
What you say does this have to do with a horse trainer enjoying riding? A bunch. When you spend a good portion of your day working with horses that could care less about you and what you are trying to teach them, you lose your desire to be around horses. It can also be very tiring mentally and physically on the trainer. I received very good advice from another trainer that I try to remember and practice when I have the time. He said, “Ride your own horses first when you are fresh and haven’t been arguing with unruly horses all day. You will be far less likely to nit-pick them or get quick with them. So, if I have a group of tough horses in and I can’t get to mine first, mine get the day off.
So then the answer is thus: Yes, training can take the joy out of riding when the day is full of horses more interested in fighting with you then learning to work with you. It will drain the pleasure of riding right out of your veins like the Xbox draining the life out of that teenager. It can do wonders for the mind to take a day and enjoy your own horse, just do some relax loping or go on a trail ride. In time, all the horses I have worked with start to understand I am trying to teach them and they begin to not only work with me, but try their best to please. This is when it becomes so rewarding to be a horse trainer.
