How Do You Choose Your Instructor?

This may be a little controversial but I’m going to say it:

I don’t care how reputable your instructor/trainer is, their name does not excuse the way they treat your horse. Or the way they expect you to treat your horse.

I’m putting the call out that we start holding trainers and instructors to a higher standard of how we handle our horses.

It’s not your fault if they don’t know how to get the results from the horse with kindness. And it’s also not your horses fault. If we put enough pressure on our instructors and trainers and make a stand of how we are willing to handle our horses than they will just have to learn and adapt their techniques.

 Learn better, do better.

I’m not exempt to this. There are definitely times that I have been disappointed in myself for getting heavy handed with an aid.

I’m also not saying we don’t maintain expectations of safe behaviour from our horses and discipline.

I am saying the way that we get there doesn’t have to be through fear and bully tactics. In fact I am saying that this is the worst way to get lasting results from our horse.

It does mean that we have to be flexible in the results that we get within a certain time frame. We don’t have to be flexible in the results just how quickly we expect our horse to get there. It is important that our horse understand how to learn and work with relaxed focus. Ideally we can get to the point where our horse enjoys working with us and learning.

Your horse doesn’t have a voice. They can’t tell you if you have offended them, if they are sore, if they don’t understand, if their body or brain is tired, if their saddle is uncomfortable, if you are sitting uncomfortably on their back (the list of things they can’t tell us can go on forever). But you know your horse better than anyone else - your instructor or trainer included.

You have to be brave enough to be their voice.

So before you book in for that clinic, workshop, lesson or training, make sure the person you are booking in with has the same philosophy on how to train as you do. And even if you do get in to the lesson or training session, I give you permission to say “no, I’m not doing that,” if you are uncomfortable with how they are telling you to treat your horse. And worst case scenario you can just play dumb and pretend to not understand what they want you to do.

Not sure what your philosophy in training is? At Equestrian Movement we start with the place of “first do no harm”. If you want to read more about our training, click here.