From: Clara
Dear Jessica, I need some help with my horse and perhaps also some help with my trainer, I'm not sure. My mare is nine years old and although she was backed at four, she didn't really get put into work until this year (it's a long story, there was a divorce and the horses just stayed in a pasture for five years) when I bought her in January. I did several months of ground work and longeing and then started riding her in May. She has been very good, at least I think so, but now she is beginning to offer a lot of resistances. My trainer says that I am not getting after her enough, because she is lazy from her years in the pasture and doesn't want to work. I don't like to ride with spurs because my legs are not very good at staying in place! But my trainer says I have to ride with spurs and when Stardust is lazy I should pull both legs away and then kick her really hard with both spurs at once to wake her up. I don't like doing this, but will it really ruin my horse if I don't make her obey instantly? I know she is nine but she really doesn't know all that much yet. Sometimes I think my trainer forgets that Stardust is still green, because she (my trainer) usually rides very young horses, getting them ready for futurities (she is a Western trainer but she also knows English riding and is teaching me that). Also, Stardust doesn't bring her head in enough or carry it down far enough so my trainer wants me to use a special snaffle that has long shanks, she says it is a good bit for getting a horse's respect, and it isn't severe like a curb. The mouth part looks like a snaffle, and the shanks aren't as long as the ones on the other bits my trainer uses, but the one time I put this snaffle on Stardust she stopped and backed and then reared so I am afraid to use it again. My trainer says that Stardust is spoiled and when she does something like that I should kick her with the spurs and jerk her with one rein at a time to make her head turn sharply right and left, and this will tell her that she has to behave. I don't know enough to argue with my trainer, but I am just not comfortable doing any of this! Can you help me please? If you tell me that I am being silly and my trainer's ideas are good, I will do what she says. But if you don't think I am being silly, can you help me find another trainer? I know I need lessons and Stardust needs training, but how can I find someone who really knows how to help us?
Thank you, I will wait for your advice! Clara and Stardust who is still green even though she is nine!
Your current trainer is completely wrong about every topic you mentioned.
Spurs are not meant to be used in that way! Spurs are meant to refine leg aids by letting you apply pressure in a small, specific spot, and any rider who pulls her legs completely away from the horse and then kicks as hard as possible with the spurs should have her spurs, and her horse, taken away.
The bit you described is not a snaffle -- it has a jointed mouthpiece, but the long shanks and chain make it a curb, and an extremely severe one at that. Any competent trainer would know the difference between a snaffle and a curb, and would know that "Argentine snaffles" and "cowboy snaffles" and "long-shank snaffles" are just incorrect names for curbs with broken mouthpieces... I'm not surprised that your mare backed and reared when you put pressure on a severe curb bit! You're lucky that she didn't go over backward, and your instinct -- the one that told you NOT to use that bit again -- is good.
This trainer may be good at preparing very young Quarter Horses to win Futurities, but she is obviously unfamiliar with the kind of riding that you want to do, and she is obviously unfamiliar with the kind of training that is designed to bring out the best in a horse OVER TIME. Training for futurities is a very short-term project: it means you have to ride horses that are 14-16 months old, to get them "ready", and it means that after that single year of heavy competition, many of those horses will be lame, and will stay that way. This isn't the kind of "training" you want for your mare. Futurity babies, like racehorses, are often finished, "washed up", just around the time that working life BEGINS for event horses, dressage horses, endurance horses, and other horses meant to have long careers.
Your instincts are good, Clara -- listen to them! They've already told you that violence and pain are not good training techniques. You need some help, yes, but not from this particular trainer.
My suggestion for you is that you contact the American Riding Instructor Association, or visit the ARIA website, and find a certified instructor near you. I can't promise you a personality match, of course -- but I can promise you that your ARICP-certified instructor will be competent and safety-oriented, and will have the basic knowledge about horses and horse-handling that your current trainer lacks.
The American Riding Instructor Certification Program (ARICP), which has been certifying instructors in twelve specialties and at five levels for nearly fifteen years. The requirements are similar to those of the BHS, and to get certification, instructors have to prove their knowledge and their ability to think on their feet. They also have to prove themselves as teachers -- their teaching is evaluated by a panel of experts in their specialty area. And they must sign -- AND ABIDE BY -- a code of ethics, which is based on the three fundamental precepts of the ARICP: safety, knowledge, and integrity. Proven failure to abide by the code of ethics is grounds for the loss of one's certification.
ARICP instructors must recertify every five years, which means taking all of the examinations and having their teaching evaluated again. As the examinations get more difficult all the time, this means that certified instructors must be studying and learning during those five years, improving their skills, in order to recertify at their previous level.... and they have to do even MORE if they want to move up and certify at a higher level.
Each year in November, the ARICP National Seminar brings certified instructors, not-yet- certified instructors, exam-takers and speakers together for an intensive few days of lectures, workshops, and informal talks.
There are good people involved with this program -- Sally Swift, Denny Emerson, Michael Page, George Morris, to name a few. There are also good people who lecture at the National Seminar -- the above-mentioned, plus many others. This year, for instance, Jane Savoie was a speaker!
No certification program is perfect, and no certification program can guarantee any rider a perfect match between student and teacher. But this is a good program, one that began well and has gotten better every year since its inception. At the least, if your instructor is ARICP-certified, you can be sure that she (or he!) is strongly safety-oriented, and has proven to have knowledge and expertise in the relevant specialty area. You can also be sure that this instructor is serious, as she went to the trouble and expense of putting her expertise on the line and offering her knowledge and skills for evaluation. Certification isn't required in this country; nobody puts a gun to any instructor's head and says "You must do this." Instructors who make the extra effort to gain certification from a reputable body with high standards should, IMO, be given full credit for what they've accomplished. Some may choose to become certified because they hope to attract more clients -- and there's nothing wrong with that. I chose to become certified because I believe in the certification process, I believe that standards should exist and should be high, and I am constantly terrified by what passes for "instruction" at many barns where the students and horses are put at risk, needlessly, by the ignorant and/or unprincipled persons who choose to call themselves "instructors" and "trainers." As a clinician, I am well-known for NOT offering any "quick fixes" -- in fact, I spend much of my time teaching basic understanding and skills to riders who SHOULD have been provided with these by their at-home instructors. It doesn't make me especially happy to be the person who comes in and moves the saddles back into proper position, takes off the flash attachments, loosens the cavessons, and removes the draw reins and other gadgets. I would MUCH prefer that the regular instructors of these riders take care of such matters -- but, unfortunately, all too often, that's where the riders GET the ideas and the equipment....
Not all local instructors, and not all uncertified instructors, are like this. It's pure pleasure to walk into a barn for a clinic and find that rider after rider is balanced, thoughtful, has suitable and correctly-adjusted tack, and is ready to make progress and have fun, which is what clinics SHOULD be. I know exactly whom I have to thank: the local instructor, who CLEARLY knows exactly what to do and how to do it.
Beginner riders and young horses need good instruction and good training in a SAFE environment -- and this is what you can expect from an ARICP-certified instructor.
The website includes a regularly-updated international directory of ARICP-certified instructors.
American Riding Instructors Association (ARIA)
28801 Trenton Court
Bonita Springs, FL 34134-3337
Tel: 239 948-3232
Fax: 239 948-5053
On the Web: http://www.riding-instructor.com/
E-Mail: aria@riding-instructor.com
Good luck, and let me know how it works out for you and Stardust.
Jessica
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