Taken for a ride by a dressage trainer - sorry, rant coming up!

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I was in a similar situation until recently so you have my full sympathy. FeuFolet, you come across as a very, how can I put it nicely, er, "assertive" person and no doubt you would have done everything perfectly and had a brilliant end result if you ever had to send a horse away. Unfortunately, in the real world there are plenty of people out to con innocent victims and it is not always easy to spot who they are. Some people, like myself and no doubt the OP, still retain a touching faith in people and expect them to be as honest and decent as we are ourselves and fully anticipate that they will do the job for which we are paying them handsomely. I was conned by someone in Yorkshire by the way.

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Eeer maybe the fact that I have been stung, lost money, nearly broken my neck and lost feeling from the neck dowm has made me cautious, but I am by no means perfect, as you seem to imply I think myself to be!

My mum (who is as horsey as they come) says 'never trust a horseman' which, to a certain degree, is true, and therefore I am cautious about who I send my horse too, train with, take advice from etc!
 
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and a daily phonecall

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thats probably a bit ott!

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My horse has been on schooling livery whilst I have been away on location etc for weeks/months both with a pro (only for a month) and with my best friend, who owns a livery yard and takes schooling livery.

Alot can happen in a day, and it is reassuring that I have contact with the person looking after my horse. I dont think it is OTT at all, especially with what you pay - they should be calling you with progress reports, and emailing pictures!!!!!!!
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There is the famous saying "Horse dealers were around before Car dealers ". I agree with your Mum I am yet to meet a honest Horseman I still live in hope
 
That is sad then. I have met many many honest horsemen in my time and they are worth their weight in gold.
 
If I was paying top price for schooling I would expect to be able to visit my horse once a day if I desired, and I wouldnt send him anywhere without watching that trainer working with other horses first.

I wouldnt visit Every day, dont want to be in peoples way, but a couple of times a week.
I would also expect to see the horse ridden to see how he was improving!

You cant take anyones word for anything.

Dont know if agree about the horse size and male rider thing, Im 5ft 5 and 8 stones, Beau is 17.3hh and we get on fine. I had more trouble with my 14.2hh!

Its more confidence, attitude etc than strength!
 
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That is sad then. I have met many many honest horsemen in my time and they are worth their weight in gold.

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Admittedly Tia, yes, as have I, but for every 1 great trainer, there is 5 to be cautious of.

Sad but true
 
I agree if they dont want you there then they are trying to pull the wool over your eyes. Its like leaving your child at a nursery and being told you cant visit ! People do seem to get intimidated by these big names and accept what they say without question. We have all got to get a bit tougher and more confident.

My OH thinks we are all mad in the horsey world and accept the strangest things.
 
There are unscrupulous people in every profession but I agree that the horse world seems to have more than its fair share. Unfortunately, if you are a nice, honest person yourself you often take others at face value especially the conmen and women because they come across as so plausible. I have been conned twice but I will continue to have faith in people because there are lots of nice people out there too and it would be a terrible shame to alienate them just because of my run ins with the scum of the horse world.
 
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Dont know if agree about the horse size and male rider thing, Im 5ft 5 and 8 stones, Beau is 17.3hh and we get on fine. I had more trouble with my 14.2hh!

Its more confidence, attitude etc than strength!

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I think the OP point was, the horse had been off work for sometime, and needed to be reintroduced again, and as she hadn't the facilities, sent the horse away.

I sent my youngster to be backed by someone I hadn't met before. He came on high reccommendation from a well known SJer, and as I trust this SJer, I knew he wouldn't stitch me up.

My boy was backed in a wonderful manner, and came back to me calm, confident and ready to be schooled on. I saw him only a handful of times in 7 weeks.

So there are still some of us who trust the word of others, and frankly I am glad I am not totally synical with the whole scene.
 
Thanks jella. I have met a few genuinely bitter and twisted individuals in my time and I am determined never to join their ranks! I like being happy.
 
There are some unscrupulous people out there!

I am lucky with the people that ride my horses, the girl that show jumps mine is wonderful and treats every horse as if its her own and her daughter rides my ponies, she is a fabulous rider and they do the riding and no one else. The same with Mat and Teddy, Mat is the only person that rides Teddy except when he broke his arm and his very capable Head Girl who is a lovely rider kept him ticking over.

I did have a girl that rode for me in the past and although she was a fantastic rider, she had livery for some horses in exchange for some of the riding but she got behind with the riding for one reason and another and eventually ended up moving out owing me around 28 schooling sessions! Of course this wasn't so bad because I didn't actually lay out alot of money, she had stables, hay and shavings from me but it is still very annoying!
 
I genuinely think this person (if tis he!) thinks you owe him quite a bit for his just like looking at your horse over the door as he leaves the yard!
Probably doesn't think he's stitched you up at all, and expects your horse to have come on in leaps and bounds by breathing the same air as his! Well not quite but you know what I mean.
Anyway, enough or I shall be in trouble!
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Firstly in rely to Panda2007. It makes me to mad to know people like this are out there. The guy in question obviously thinks himself a bit special. I'm pretty sure amongst the horsey world it's common knowledge he can talk the talk.
I hope your lad gets sorted and is back on track soon.

General reply to all:

those who asked why OP didnt phone daily/ visit daily etc, can I ask you one question?
Do you wipe your horses bottoms after they poop? Fan them on a hot day? peel their carrots for them? I do sometimes wonder!!!


seriously, if you're paying top dollar for a guy like this to train your horse you expect your horse to be in good hands. You don't expect to have to rush home from work early just so you can see your horse, or to have to phone on a daily basis. You expect to be able to leave the horse in his capable hands and know if there's a problem he'll contact you, and when he feels it's time for you to come in and ride he'll call.

we've all been conned at one time or another, and we learn from those mistakes. I'm sure OP has learnt from this, and is paying highly for trusting someone who quite frankly I think alot on here would have trusted.
 
Well I wouldn't exactly say that Panda was paying "top dollar". £150 per week for training and stabling really isn't that much where training is concerned, however that is by the by and not particularly relevant to the conversation, only in so far as perhaps this was some sort of indication that the trainer was perhaps not going to be spending much time with the horse.

Anyway getting back to the comments about contacting people who have your horse. When I am away I expect to be contacted at least once every couple of days, generally via text, however this is generally to make sure my yard is being run without hiccups. I know that if any horses have any issues then the people I leave in charge won't hesitate to contact me.

I've never sent any of my horses to anyone else's yard so I can't honestly say what I would do - doubtful I'd expect them to contact me every day, however I would certainly be visiting my horse a couple of times a week. In Panda's situation, she gives reasons for why this was not possible; this cannot be helped, she trusted this person.

The only time one of mine has been somewhere else was when I had Cloud flown out here and I have to say it was a terrific weight off my mind when Cornell Uni phoned me every single day to let me know how she was doing, and for that I was incredibly grateful.
 
Well she says the horse was there for 6 weeks and the total cost was only £1K, so unless there were other fees on top then it sounds pretty inexpensive to me.
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Well you see that is the problem of trying to guess eh?
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I immediately discounted the person I was thinking of, purely because of the figure Panda said she was paying....gosh I charge more than than that figure and I am not up to the level of the man I thought of, LOL!!
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Are but I assuemd the 1k was not for all 6 weeks, I asumed she would be billed at least monthly so the 1k may have only been for a couple of weeks, of course lots of assuming going on by all of us here!!
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Ahh now that did not occur to me - you could very well be right, in which case I'll reserve my initial guess until someone gives us a little more feedback.
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At £30 per hour for pure exercise, £150 is not many hours of training, and even cheaper if you have stable livery.
 
Showjumpers do tend to be much cheaper than Dressage riders in my experience, some Dressage yards I know charge £150 a week or more just for livery!
 
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