I’ve been mulling over ideas to write about for my supporters and it’s caused me to try to narrow down my target audience to new horse owners, beginners, green riders, those who want to jump in this industry. These are the people who will change this industry.
From my own experience and perspective, I’ve learned that the longer the horse “experience” the harder it is to have an open mind. I did this myself when I tried to “join” the local community as a person who works with horses. I thought to myself “hell, I’ve been riding and caring for horses since I was 4 years old and am now 50 that should count for something, right?” Unfortunately no. It counts for nothing except for a red flag in my opinion. I still tell others how long I’ve been working with horses but I follow it up with the fact that there is more to learn.
“I know what I’m doing, I’ve been doing this for 25 years” and “while I’ve been doing this for 25 years, there is still so much to learn because every horse and every situation is different” are two very different ways of expressing someone’s experience that should be taken seriously
I created a farm/ranch job group on Facebook to help those in our community find jobs working with animals and the majority of the job seeking posts always point out the years of horse ownership/experience in hopes that it helps them to find a job and sadly it doesn’t help much. I think barn owners can compare it to trying to choose a horse that’s been passed around to different trainers and still isn’t safe to ride versus a green horse fresh out the field with minimal human interaction that is a clean slate. I seem to be drawn to the horses who’ve been passed around and misunderstood than the clean slate horses, I have both on my property right now and I understand the troubled one much more than the one with the clean slate. They’ve both taught me I don’t know shit about horses so I can just toss the need to point out my 46 years of experience out the window and be prepared to learn something every time I am doing something with them.
Thank you for joining me on this journey, I appreciate you all so much. I’m not a professional writer, I’m not a professional horse trainer, I’m only a girl with some pretty incredible insight and intuition who grew up with horses for friends. I like comments, shares and ideas to talk about.
*****The following is a disclaimer **** The experiences I’m planning on sharing here are my own throughout my life of horses, from when I was a kid to now as an adult trying to speak for the horses. I am going to be sharing things that were horrific for me to witness, the barn owners and trainers who broke my confidence and the horses I had to walk away from. Names and locations will not be disclosed to protect them from harassment. I don’t write to condemn others, I write to educate and to give another perspective and hopefully trigger some reflection. Please consider buying this girl a coffee so I can continue on this journey helping others.