From: Tomas
Dear Jessica, first I must say to you "Thank you" for HORSE-SENSE. You have given much help to many people and horses. I must now ask for your advice on a matter of a trainer behaving badly. For more than one year, I kept my two horses in his barn, and he was training the horses for me. The barn is very beautiful. The trainer is well known in this area and many people keep their horses in his barn for the training, me and two other of my friends also.
In this barn the horses are usually in their stalls, not often in a pasture, but sometimes they are in a pasture. When they are in a pasture they will not come to the fence or let you touch them. When they are in their stalls they stand alert with their heads very high when you approach the stalls, and do not come to the doors. The trainer says this is a matter of respect that he teaches them, and also that he accepts only horses that are well bred and naturally alert, and this is why their heads are high when they see us come to their stalls.
I do not believe him now. I believed him for one year, then on two occasions I found him beating a horse with a whip behind the barn, and cursing the horse. Now I believe that the respect is not respect but fear, and the horses hold their heads so high out of fear, not because they are alert. The first time I saw the trainer do this, he stopped immediately and said it was a necessary punishment because the horse had tried to buck him off. The second time he did not see me, I was with my wife and we came in the evening to look at the leg of one of my horses because it had a lump on its leg. We heard a noise behind the barn and went to look and again he was beating a horse. I wanted to beat him but my wife said No, in America we must call the police. The police did not come or even care, the man on the telephone said it was only a horse and it was not my horse so they would not come. I called Animal Control and the woman on the telephone said it was not a service for horses but for dogs.
I went to take the whip from the trainer, but he was not beating the horse and the horse was running in the pasture and would not come to the fence. He said I was confused that I must have seen him pat the horse on the haunches when he released it to the pasture, and that he did not beat a horse. He smiled and wanted to pat me on my back, but I told him not to touch me and I would take away my horses the following day.
What kind of trainer is like this, with no honor, to beat horses and tell lies?
My wife was angry also, but horses are not so much a passion for her like they are with me, and she does not understand why I feel personally betrayed by this trainer. We have taken our horses to the barn of another trainer, not so much beautiful a barn buta very quiet place where the horses will come to the fence and allow you to touch them.
I am angry with the trainer for his abuse of those horses that I observed. I am angry also with myself for that I did not understand what kind of man he was. Now I am also angry with my friends who did not take their horses away from this trainer. I told them what I had seen, what was the true nature of this man, but they have not seen this aspect of him so they do not want to take their horses away.
Please tell me what I could have done and what I should do now.
Tomas
You did everything you could have done - you tried to get help for the horse that was being beaten, and you took your horses out of the hands of the abusive trainer. What you should do NOW is stop being angry. Your anger will not help your horses or your friends' horses.
Your story is a familiar one. It is not at all unusual for a trainer to handle horses one way in public and another in private. The actions performed in front of the barn, for the benefit of visitors and clients, are often not at all the same as the actions routinely performed behind the barn when no one else is there to see.
I'm sorry that the police and Animal Control were not able to do anything. If you ever see anything like that again, try calling the nearest horse rescue society instead. It's unlikely that they will be act, and they will not be able to do anything to save the horse from being beaten, but they will be able to give you suggestions and advice, and they will probably know whether there have been previous complaints against this trainer.
Beating horses is, of course, completely unacceptable, but you already knew that, so that is not the lesson you should take away from this experience. For you, the important lesson is that you should judge trainers by their behaviour and their actions, not by their claims or their smiles - or the size of their trophy cases. I know that you rarely see ALL of a trainer's behaviour, you're usually exposed only to the trainer's public face, but your horses are at the barn all the time, they see ALL sides of the trainer, and horses don't lie. By observing the appearance and demeanour of horses at a trainer's barn, you can form very accurate conclusions about the trainer's behaviour. You were a witness to only two specific beatings, but long before you accidentally discovered exactly what this "trainer" was doing behind the barn, the horses in the barn and in the fields had already told you that there was a problem.
In a well-run barn, horses will generally come to the pasture fence when visitors appear, unless they have just been turned out and are trying to make the most of a brief chance to graze or play. If the horses are in stalls, they will typically come to the front of their stalls to see who you are and what you are doing (and whether you have food with you). When horses stand with their heads very high and won't approach the stall door, that's not respect, that's tension - based on fear and apprehension.
Don't punish yourself for not being able to see past a smile and into a heart. That's never easy to do. It can be almost impossible to observe the true nature of a person when you only see a public face that he presents to his clients. You were fooled, but now you know, and you have taken your horses away - thus doing what is called "voting with your feet".
There is not much else you can do at this point - except, perhaps, to warn others, and you have tried to do that. Your friends may eventually believe you - or they, too, may someday see what is happening behind the barn. Trainers - like riding instructors - often inspire devotion in their clients, even when the devotion is utterly undeserved. If your friends are devoted to this trainer, you will just have to be patient and hope that they will eventually discover for themselves the truth of what you are trying to tell them. Remember that they haven't SEEN the trainer beating a horse, they have only been TOLD that the trainer has beaten a horse. Ask yourself this: When you had your horses at that trainer's barn, during that first year, if someone had told YOU that this apparently-nice man with the big smile was an abusive trainer, and that you should leave, would YOU have believed it? Or would you have said "I will have to see that for myself"?
Anger serves no purpose in this case. If you have enough extra energy to be angry, use the energy for something more worthwhile: Look up the nearest horse rescue organization and offer them your help as a volunteer. Your anger won't help any horses, but your volunteer work WILL.
It's not a crime to be fooled by someone. Smiles can be deceiving. Life would be very simple if all good people were also beautiful and had charming, and if bad people were also ugly and unlikeable. But - there it is, life is NOT simple, and when it comes to personal charm, the attractiveness of the packaging doesn't necessarily indicate the quality of the contents.
Relax, enjoy your horses and the peaceful atmosphere at your new barn, and from now on, remember to (a) judge by actions, and (b) trust your horses. There's an old proverb to keep in mind - you may already be familiar with it: "Caras vemos, corazones no sabemos."
Jessica
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