I felt like I was treading water, while everyone around me moved ahead. Opportunities to compete at a high level never seemed to materialize. I now realize this was because I had built a reputation as someone who was good with difficult or green horses when I was still very young. Though I didn’t know what I was doing back then, I was both sticky and persistent. Colts I started became, for the most part, more agreeable to be around and learned how to steer and stop. Horses who bucked, bolted, or reared did not scare me. My skill set meant I stayed busy, but the downside was that it kept me stuck in the she-can-ride-anything niche. Yes, I’ve had a few talented horses in my barn over the years, but these horses always seemed to leave once I had taught them the basics, or once their problematic behavior had stopped. “Now he’s ready for the real dressage trainer!” I kept hearing. Clients trusted me with their young horses, or their rescue projects, or the horse they could not figure out - but rarely with the continuing education of their “good” horses.
I could put a solid foundation on a horse - any horse. But instead of feeling proud of this, I always felt inferior to everyone else. I was not good enough. I was less than a real dressage trainer, less than an upper-level rider. I also worried that, since I had missed the stairway to FEI heaven, I would end up without a job once I was too old to ride broncs. I envisioned my 50-plus year old self as a pathetic figure: penniless, limping, and hanging around dressage barns like the old broken-down rodeo cowboys around the bucking chutes, unable to still ride but just as unable to let go of the dream of still riding.
There is no glory in solid foundations, yet my younger self craved glory in some form: high scores, championships, medals, awards, recognition. I wanted the opportunity to take a talented horse up the levels, to prove once and for all that I was as good a trainer as other trainers. I never achieved that goal. Instead, because I kept doing it, I became better at working with young horses, and with behaviorally challenged horses. But instead of considering my career a failure, I now realize it’s been going exactly where it needed to go all along. I’m almost 54 now. It’s true - I no longer start colts or ride broncs. I don’t bounce like I used to. But I still ride a lot of different horses (and a few mules) with various issues and teach them solid foundations - plus, I now teach their owners how to build solid relationships with them, which is something I’ll be able to do for the rest of my life, happily, without resentment.
I still admire dressage trainers who take talented young horses up the levels, all the way to Grand Prix. It takes a lot of hard work, plus heavy doses of tact and skill, especially for riders who, like the vast majority of my colleagues, truly love horses and therefore want to develop their bodies and minds without causing them harm. It also takes way thicker skin than I have. The world of high-level equestrian competition is unforgiving. I would have been miserable there. I would have crumbled under the pressure.
I used to crave opportunities to compete like addicts crave heroin. Now, I’m so glad these opportunities never came my way. Solid foundations still offer no glory, but they give me a sense of purpose and immense job satisfaction instead. I have the opportunity to work with many different breeds of horses, and a few mules, too - equines of all ages, from all kinds of backgrounds. This it what keeps my life interesting. This is what keeps me excited about what I do every day. If you're a young horse professional with big dreams, please know they can come true in a hundred different, sometimes not immediately obvious ways - not just one.
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