Is the thrill of horse riding corrupted by coaching? At various places and numerous times, I have heard this question being posed by different people in different languages. Just lately, I was asked this specific question for the nth time and it has been caroming around my skull since then. I have worried over this question for a long time now, and recently I made up my mind that it was time I surrendered everything else and attempted to get an answer to this question.

It might not give the impression of being the brightest of questions, most particularly to youngsters having dreams about becoming pro horse trainers. Yet, the undeniable truth is that pony trainers frequently run into contrary-minded and extremely difficult horses which will test them hard. It is an element of the drawbacks of the job. No pony is so perfect that it can’t do with some coaching, and some horses are more difficult than the others. Some horses can be absolute disasters.

A large amount of horse owners make the mistake of presuming that horse trainers are voodoo doctors, that they can cast spells on horses which make the horses perfect trial mounts inside a few days. Pony owners believe that horses under trainers’ spells will stay that way as long as they live. These people have high hopes of their horses and their trainers. They don’t realize the damage their earlier cosseting and pampering of the horses have caused. They have spoilt their horses stupid, and the horses demonstrate each type of vice you can think of. The pony owners expect trainers to undo all these negative habits and convert their horses into docile angels. I lost count of the amount of times I have reminded people that a human needs 2000 repetitions of a habit-breaking process to literally break it, another 2000 repetitions of a habit-forming process to develop a new habit and finally about 10,000 correct repetitions more to turn the new habit into unconscious behaviour. Next time your pony stamps on your feet or sends you sprawling because he wasn’t looking where he was going, think about this: isn’t it time to rush him off to do a couple of thousand repetitions of this and that?

Here’s where all this is leading up to: the owner of an especially difficult horse expects a new tutor to convert that pony into a saint in a few moments. If the coach is wise and fair, he will tell the owner what is reasonable and what is not. If the coach isn’t so smart or honest, he will take up the assignment and find himself losing by attempting to take a pony to the water and make it drink. His efforts to make the pony show quick results will virtually surely make the scenario worse. The pony is going to go even more negative.

It’s time to go back to the question that was the first sentence of this article. The answer’s obvious: when a pony trainer is continually wasting his time with horses that are adamant on not being taught anything, he’s at some point likely to lose his desire to be around these animals. He is going to feel the exhausting drain that his task has become on his physical and mental well being.

One or two years back, an amicable coach gave me a piece of sound advice that I’ll always remember in this life. He told me “Only when you’re fresh and haven’t been fooling around with unruly horses through the day should you ride your own pony.” That way, you will enjoy riding your pony, and you will not penalize him out of the disappointment and anger the other horses caused in you. I have followed that advice faithfully, and plan to continue doing so.

You know the answer: yes, a coach can get fatally turned off horses, even his own family, if he is having a difficult time with difficult horses that he is trying to train. Unless the tutor has enormous self-control and also requires time off to ride his own horses and communicate with them, he is going to go from bad to much worse. If a trainer under strain relaxes himself every now and then and returns with charged batteries to his work.

Horses are Heather Toms passion and she enjoys sharing her extensive knowledge through her 100s of articles with other horse lovers, like all things about riding hats