From: Ella
Dear Jessica, I just had to say "RIGHT ON!" when I read your response about using a badly-behaved four-year-old as a lesson horse for children. I am a certified instructor and just left a barn recently where I could have made good money, but I knew that teaching there was not compatible with safety or professional integrity. When I took the job, the barn owner told me that he bought horses, used them in his lesson program, and then when he knew that they were well-trained and reliable, he would sell them for children's hunters. That sounded like a good idea and a safe program since he would get to know all the horses really well when he was training them for the lesson program.
I quickly found out that things were not exactly the rose-colored picture he had described! The real story was that the barn owner would buy horses at auctions and then cut their feed way back (grass hay only, no grain) and "ace" them and use them in group "lessons" for kids, six or eight hours a day. The children's parents had no idea that these horses were untrained and unsafe, they didn't see the drugs being given in the barn, and when a horse would trip and fall, the owner told them "Riding is a high-risk sport and we take every possible safety precaution." Well that just wasn't true! Before I got there, and probably now since I've left, there were no safety precautions at all, not even helmets. The kids in the English lessons were given old huntcaps (not helmets, just those old no-protection huntcaps) to wear, and their parents didn't know that those weren't helmets, because the owner called them "helmets". The kids in the Western lessons would wear cowboy hats or baseball caps or nothing at all on their heads, because "Western is safe, there's no jumping and you have a saddle horn so you can't fall off" (according to the barn owner). I just went online and looked at his web site and you can still see photos of a girl jumping in just a hunt cap, and a group of kids in Western saddles with no helmets or hats at all.
You are probably wondering why I didn't quit as soon as I found out how this place was run. Well I honestly believed I could make a difference by teaching them why safety is important and why the riders should wear helmets, etc. Ha ha. The owner didn't want to hear any of it, and got mad when he caught me telling some of the parents that they should buy real helmets for their kids.
I finally quit when the owner got a "deal" on a group of young rescue horses and brought them home and put them right into the lesson program with beginner kids on them. These horses were three and four years old, totally out of shape, and barely knew how to plow-rein! I was supposed to pretend that they were trained and safe, and use them to teach little kids to ride. When I explained why I just couldn't do that and he shouldn't want to do that, he said it would be okay if I wanted to spend some of my "free time" training the horses so that they would be "better" lesson horses. He wasn't going to pay me for the time, and it made me angry because they weren't going to be "better" lesson horses because they weren't lesson horses in the first place! So I told him that this was just too dangerous and I didn't want to be the instructor in the lesson where some child would get hurt. He gave me a great big smile and exclaimed "If you're a good instructor nobody will get hurt, that's why I pay you." This guy is extremely sweet and smiley but you can't tell him anything, and so I finally just quit. I felt bad about it because I worry about the horses and the kids, but I couldn't stay there and pretend like everything was fine.
My whole life I've been around horses, and I've always heard how hard it is to find good riding instructors, and the barn owners make it sound like they are so ethical and careful and always looking out to protect their riders from crazy unsafe instructors. Well I just want to say that sometimes it is totally the other way round. In my case I was the careful safe instructor being told to do things that I knew were completely wrong, like letting riders ride without real helmets and using young horses in children's lessons.
Now I am teaching at another barn where the owner is sensible and ethical and actually cares about safety. NOBODY gets on a horse here without wearing a real helmet and boots, and all of the lesson horses used for kids are well trained and at least ten years old, and most are older than that. One is seventeen and one is twenty-three! I feel very lucky to have landed at a real lesson barn finally, but I still worry about the kids who take lessons at that other barn. Why do some people take risks like that with other people's children, and why do the children's parents let them do it? Don't they get any information about safety before they put their kids in lessons, and why do they recommend bad instructors to other parents even after their children get hurt? That happened a lot of times and it made me sick to hear someone say "Oh yes she broke her arm but it wasn't anybody's fault, accidents happen" when I knew darned well that THAT accident only happened because a kid who couldn't even steer her horse had to canter or jump? What can be done to change this?
Ella
As to why parents would take their children to such barns - there are a lot of reasons, but most of them would come down to simple ignorance. Many parents just don't know any better. Many parents have little or no experience with horses, and have no way to judge the quality or safety of a lesson program. They're likely to take their children to the barn that is the best advertised, or the largest, or the most conveniently located. They would never deliberately put their children at risk, but they don't know anything about horses or safety or safe teaching practices, and so they have no idea that the "sweet and smiley" owner is endangering their kids. That's also why they recommend bad instructors - they don't know any better, and children are quick to develop loyalty to "their" instructors. If all a parent understands about riding lessons is that little Johnny or little Susie is sitting on a horse once or twice a week and loves every minute of it, it's very natural for that parent to praise the instructor and recommend him or her to others.
The answer to your last question is "education". Riding IS a risky sport, there's no question about that. Risk cannot be eliminated from ANY riding program, no matter how wonderful it it. But risks can definitely be reduced. Good instructors, good school horses, safe, appropriate, well-fitting tack, individual lessons for beginner riders, safe fencing, good footing are all factors in minimizing risk.
Many of the risks you've described are completely unnecessary ones, and the best way to avoid THOSE risks is by educating everyone involved. Well-informed parents will "vote with their feet" and enroll their children in lesson programs where the instructors are good, the horses are sound, trained, and experienced, the tack is appropriate and safe, and every rider is required to wear safe footgear and a properly-fitted, properly-adjusted helmet that meets or exceeds the current safety standards.
In legal terms, there may be a difference between an injury sustained because of ignorance and one sustained because of greed. I don't know. You'd need to consult an equine law specialist for that. But in purely practical, personal terms, the effect on the injured rider is likely to be exactly the same. Whether a horse falls on a rider because it is exhausted or unsound, or because it is drugged, the rider is likely to get squashed.
The risks aren't limited to children, either. The kind of "lesson mill" you've described is just as dangerous for adult beginners - possibly even more dangerous, truth be told, because adults are typically less bouncy and more breakable than children. They SHOULD get information about safety practices and what makes good-quality lessons BEFORE they sign up, but the truth is that most people don't. Whether they're looking for lessons for their children or for themselves, they're likely to pick a stable out of the telephone directory or follow up an advertisement, and before you know it, there they are in a dangerous situation.
You can help change this by being the best instructor you know how to be, and by supporting groups that promote the values that you care about. The United States Pony Clubs, Inc., the American Riding Instructors Association, the American Medical Equestrian Association, the American Association for Horsemanship Safety, and CHA-The Association for Horsemanship Safety and Education - these are all good organizations that deserve your support. Affliate yourself with one or more of them, and continue to work for safety. It's a worthy cause.
I'm glad to know that you have found a better place to teach, and I hope that all of the children from the other barn will follow you there. ;-)
Jessica
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