In Which I Walk Away

It has been nearly a year since this went down, but I still haven't gotten it together enough to write it down. I keep mentioning (in passing) that I still deal with my fair share of crazy. Well... this one was one for the books!

I have had a few clients come and go through Wink's barn. Some have stopped being clients on better terms than others. Patty stopped taking lessons when her grades failed. I turned down a couple with three horses because I simply don't have the time to take them on. Another couple had two thoroughbreds in training with me for a little while, and I'll blog about them soon, too.

And then there was Nancy.

Nancy has two horses. One is a mustang cross named Stormy. The other is a really ugly appaloosa mare named Lilly.

Initially, I was hired to work with Stormy. Stormy is a middle aged (twelve? year old) gelding , and Nancy got him as a 'green broke' two year old from some cowboy in Florida (she lived there at the time). Her ultimate goal with Stormy is to ride training level dressage, something just about anyone should be able to accomplish on a sane, sound horse, if they so desire.

The story with Stormy is that he is basically fine so long as you let him do whatever he wants. He can ride at the walk and trot in the ring by the barn, as long as he gets to go where he pleases and you don't try to tell him what to do too much. He will trail ride to some degree if he's following another horse. That's about it.



I was told that Stormy "doesn't do" the ring at the front of the farm.

Apparently, there are a lot of things that Stormy doesn't do. He doesn't stand for the mounting block. He doesn't bend. He doesn't canter.

My evaluation consisted of me taking  him down to the bottom ring and doing ground work. I found a horse who was pushy, rude, and jumpy. He bucked, he pulled, and when I didn't let him get away with any of that, he resorted to rearing. I informed Nancy that he wasn't a horse I would even sit on without filling in a lot of the apparent holes. Sorry, I have too many nice horses to ride to get hurt by one who has never had any boundaries. Nancy swore up and down that he doesn't do anything bad under saddle, but she also wasn't willing to get on him. Ha. Been there, heard that, have the hardware to prove it.



Two sessions later, I arrived at the barn to have Nancy ask me if I would be willing to work with Lilly. Until that point, the BO, who I get along with pretty well, had been working with Lilly. I didn't want to step on any toes and hadn't even asked about the mare. That day, however, the BO handed me the reins and said, "You can have her! I'm done!"

Lilly's story is even better than Stormy's. Nancy bred Lilly herself. She is half thoroughbred, and her dam was banned from racing after she developed the nasty habit of maliciously dumping her jockeys out of the blue. So Nancy, the genius that she is, decided to breed the mare to an appaloosa of all things. Shoot me.



Lilly is 8 years old and has accomplished exactly nothing. She has been through one trainer after another, and it sounds like the story is always the same. She makes progress, working up to the point where the trainers can walk and trot her around safely. Then, one day, she goes off, throwing epic bucks until someone gets hurt. Then she gets moved on down the line.

Nancy is convinced that the mare was horribly abused by more than one of these trainers, but I have met two of them myself, and can say with a lot of certainty that neither one would beat on a horse.

The BO had been working with Lilly and was riding her around on a pretty regular basis, but that week Lilly had gone off with no warning, and had launched the BO, sending her into the fence and injuring her more than a little bit.



Once again, I told Nancy that I wouldn't just throw a leg over and see if I could stay there. Sorry. Not my M.O.

And this is where the fun begins. I spent some time working with Lilly on the ground. She had a pretty good idea of lunging, disengaging her hindquarters, and bending. We moved along to the next step and I put her next to the mounting block. Bend left, bend right, check parking brake. Check, check, check. So I leaned over her. She stood completely still, which would have been a good thing if she wasn't completely rigid.

I thumped Lilly with the off stirrup and she went off like a rocket. She bucked so hard I heard her back crack! I quietly slid back to the ground, landing softly on my butt in the deep sand. Lilly kept right on bucking, and I can honestly say they were probably the biggest bucks I've ever seen in a non-rodeo horse. She bucked so hard that she actually left ruts all around the arena. And she kept going and going and going.

I brushed off my breeches and declared, "And this is why I won't just get on her."

And so the run around began. Nancy was a terrible client from day one, but I was already at the barn every Friday, so I was game for some extra cash on the weeks that she could get her act together. No matter how much I preached about the importance of consistency in horse handling, Nancy couldn't stick to a plan. She wasn't willing to pay for more than half an hour of training per week. She rarely lessoned two weeks in a row. Sometimes she would lesson before Wink. Sometimes after. Sometimes she would call me at the last second to schedule a lesson. Sometimes she would cancel with barely enough notice for me not to drive down there. I rolled my eyes, but hoped her schedule would eventually settle.

In the mean time, I made slow progress with Lilly. We started a desensitizing regimen. I would get her comfortable with a level of pressure, only to have her explode the second we moved on to the next step. Every time she exploded, it was into a series of very impressive bucks. Once, she bucked so hard and so recklessly that she ran head first into the side of the barn and fell over. I wasn't even touching her for that one.



I was able to convince Nancy to have a chiropractor and a vet out. We didn't even have a saddle on at this point, but she does have a very nice dressage saddle that gets regularly fitted to the mare. Lilly does have a weak stifle, but nothing that would cause the sort of behavior she was displaying.

After a few sessions, Nancy started to wonder if her money would be better spent on lessons with Stormy. She was willing to ride him, and wanted help 'fine tuning' him. I agreed to coach her for half an hour a week.

On our first session, it became very clear that Stormy had been trained with draw reins at some point in his life. Just the slightest bit of pressure on the bit would send him behind the vertical, where he would hide to evade the bit. He didn't know the first thing about moving forward into the contact, and he would hold his head stiffly tucked to his chest from the second Nancy got on him until the second she got down.

When I asked if he'd ever been in draw reins, Nancy vehemently denied it. I asked if she broke the horse herself or had him trained, and she admitted he came 'green broke' as a two year old. When I asked what that entailed she said, "Oh, you know, walk trot canter in a frame..." I hate to tell you, but a two year old who walks, trots, and canters in a frame when you get him has more than likely had some short cuts taken in his training.

All the while, Nancy was constantly late and was often still tacking up half an hour into our lesson slot. I am not one of those trainers who starts the clock the second she sets foot on the property, but it was getting ridiculous and I wound up having to cut her already brief lessons even shorter to get my day done.

On top of that, Nancy is a very high strung, nervous, and weepy person... not a good combo around horses. She was always on the verge of a nervous melt down and she made me jittery just from being around her. Yikes....

One day, the ring by the barn wasn't available. By the time we got to the front arena, Nancy was a nervous wreck. She was shaking as she led Stormy to the mounting block. Needless to say, he wouldn't stand still for her to get on him. I tried to coach her, but she just got worse and worse until I took Stormy's reins myself.

After a little bit of bending and parking, I decided to get on the horse. And I totally misread him. He was standing still, nice and relaxed, nothing amiss. I put a foot in the stirrup and Stormy tried to walk off. I bent his nose toward me, like I had a hundred times before. I should have known better. Stormy did exactly what a horse who has been trained with draw reins often does when he feels he can't go forward. He went straight up in the air.

I was totally caught off guard and tumbled off his back into the sand. Two for two, her horses had dumped me within a month of each other. To add insult to injury, Stormy then looked over his shoulder at me, deliberately lined me up, and tried to kick me. He missed because I saw it coming and dove back into the dirt away from him, at which point he went bucking and rearing around the ring.

Nancy swore up and down that he has never reared ever, ever, ever. I had my doubts about that. He certainly felt like he had rearing down to an art. He knew exactly how high to go to dislodge me without going over. Mike and the BO both saw the whole thing happen and agreed that it looked very deliberate, and that there hadn't been any warning from the horse.

 I talked to the BO later and found out that he often rears because he, "Doesn't like to be restrained."

He doesn't like to be restrained.
A twelve year old domesticated horse.
Who has been broke since he was two.
Doesn't like to be restrained.

Nancy had a lot to say about what she would have done differently. I resisted the urge to point out that she wasn't willing or able to get on the horse herself.

Then, I told her, "This is going to be a very hard thing for you to hear, but it needs to be said. You have two horses. Both of them have very bad, very dangerous habits under saddle. One is a mare, one is a gelding. One is an appaloosa. One is a mustang cross. One is eight, one is twelve. One you've had since birth, one you got already broke. They have lived in different places. They have had different trainers. What is the common denominator?"

She stared at me blankly.

"You, Nancy. You are what is making your horses nuts."

I went on to tell her that her lack of consistency, her unwillingness to set boundaries, and her nervous nature were all working against her horses.

I also told her, "You brought Lilly into this world. It is your responsibility to look out for her future. You cannot, in clean conscience, sell her to someone. She will kill somebody. It's not right to auction her. So what are your other options? Can you afford to keep this horse for the rest of her life as a pasture mate if you're not willing to put in the time and the money to get her trained? Half an hour every couple of weeks just isn't going to do the trick. You need to be here every day doing the legwork with this horse, and it doesn't sound like you can do that right now. I don't think it would be right to euthanize her because you haven't done right by her. She's not dangerous in the pasture or on the ground, but she is definitely not fit as a riding horse right now, and that's not going to change if you don't actively do something about it."

I fully expected her to fire me on the spot. In fact, I was half hoping she would. Looking back, I have absolutely no idea why I put up with any of it for more than a nanosecond, but there I was.

Instead, Nancy tucked her tail between her legs and agreed with me.

Then, I didn't hear from her for a week. I assumed that was that.

At 4pm the following Friday, I showed up at the barn for my lesson with Wink. Nancy was standing in the barn aisle, arms crossed, scowling. "What happened to our lesson?" she barked when I walked in the door.
"You never contacted me to schedule one."
"I thought this was our regular time," she wailed, already growing hysterical.
"You have yet to take a lesson at the same time two weeks in a row. I hardly think we have a regular time. If I had showed up at three, and you weren't here, I would have had to charge you for the slot, and you would have been unhappy. At least this way you're not out of money." She continued to pout and argue and I finally said, "I don't know what to tell you, Nancy. Everybody else seems to understand how scheduling works."
"Do you confirm with Wink every week?"
"No. I don't have to. Wink's owners have had the same lesson slot every week for three years. If they have to miss a lesson, they call and cancel long in advance. If they need to reschedule, they do it ahead of time. They show up on time, have the horse tacked up when I arrive, and pay me in a timely fashion."

O yeah... did I mention she still owed me for our last session at this point? It would take me another month and an invoice with a very large 'late payment' charge for me to finally get my money.

"Well, I'm sorry I'm not one of your precious clients!!!" Nancy screamed, throwing her arms up in the air."
"I'm just telling you why I don't have to confirm with Wink every week."

Suddenly, Nancy took a deep breath and said, with an eerie calm, "Dom, I am getting a very bad vibe off of you right now. Do I need to find a new trainer?"
"You know what, Nancy... that is probably a good idea."

Well... that set her off. She went off, berating me, screaming about how my methods don't work anyway (apparently not being able to fix her two horses' decade-long training issues in three hours combined makes me a bad trainer), and crying while chasing me down the driveway (she's only about four feet tall, and I walk fast to begin with).

Finally, I spun around, put my hand up, and declared, "Nancy. This is not how I conduct my business. I am a professional, and part of free lancing is that I don't need to and do not put up with this sort of behavior. I wish you the best of luck in your hunt for your next trainer. I want nothing but the best for your horses. I will be in my car waiting for my other clients now."

Dear god.

I have had several evaluations that didn't lead to anything else. I've had people who use me until their horses are 'better' and then move on, either to other trainers or to ride on their own. I even had a client never call me back because I suggested changing farriers. The horse had very long toes and kept tripping with the man's wife in the saddle. Apparently the farrier was a lifelong friend, and the husband (a seventy year old cowboy) was pretty offended at my suggestion. But I have not had anyone go off on me like Nancy did since I started my own business.

I suspect there were some underlying issues and some personal stuff. All the same, it made me grateful that I walked away from the situation before anyone got hurt.

As always, I am learning from bad experiences. What I learned from this one was not to take on crazy clients out of pity for their horses. I also stopped offering half hour training sessions. I also raised my rate for remedial horses.

But the story isn't over yet.

I still go to Wink's every Friday, and often times Nancy is there. She does the feeding on some Friday afternoons (always a delightful disaster to watch... delightful because it's not my barn, and they're not my horses). I guess she has gotten over whatever happened that day because she is super perky around me now. Not in the fake polite way either. She banters at me about all the little things in her life and cracks jokes at me and even gossips about the other boarders, which I find hilarious. I have heard from several people now that she's a walking disaster, and I just wish someone had told me that before I had to figure it out myself (not that it took long).

Two weeks after Nancy fired me, I saw that the fence in the bottom arena was broken. I asked one of my lesson kids what had happened, and she informed me that Stormy had thrown Nancy through the fence. I asked how it happened and the girl told me, "He spooked and reared straight up." When I said that Nancy told me he never reared before, the girl laughed and said, "He rears all the time. Everyone knows that."

Just this month, I found out Nancy's new training approach. For $150 per session (!!!) she is paying an 'equine healer' to come work with Lilly. The healer brings crystals and does healing chants and communicates with the horse.

I managed to keep a straight face when Nancy told me all of this. I asked, "Is it working?"
"O my gosh, yes! We are really making progress. I can even bridle Lilly now!" (The horse never had a problem with tacking up or ground manners when I worked with her.)
"Are you riding her already?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"O no. The healer says the reason your methods didn't work is because they were too aggressive." (I lunged the horse in a saddle and bridle, and rattled some aluminum cans near her. That's as far as we got.)"She also says that Lilly has a dark history of abuse and may never be able to handle being ridden, but that's ok..."

Guys... I am so in the wrong end of this industry. I need to just start training horses by talking to them on the phone. I can just sit home and drink my vodka and collect three times as much money as currently do. In fact, I'll probably end up with less bumps and bruises that way. I betcha nobody has ever gotten kicked by a horse over the phone...

What makes me sad about all of this is that when I go out to the paddock these days, Lilly follows me around, being a total snuggle bug. She has been doing this since the very first time I stepped foot on the property, before I knew who she was. Last week, Nancy saw her following me and exclaimed that the healing is working and Lilly feels comfortable enough to approach me.
"Nancy... this horse is always following me around. Shut up." (I may be out of professionalism for this one.)

Gosh. It's too bad that my aggressive training traumatized this horse so badly. She probably has nightmares about me.

Did I mention that Nancy is now riding Stormy around with no helmet? When another boarder asked her if she forgot something, she stated, "O... I'm just walking him around. He hasn't been ridden in a couple months, and my back is bothering me so I don't need a helmet." To me, that sounds like more reason to wear a helmet, but that must be my aggressive training coming out....