What Are Horse Trainers And Instructors Thankful For?

This article is way easier for me to write than the one about what horses are thankful for. That was just my speculations and observations. An educated guess. The things I will mention in this article, these are things that I know of first hand.

Any clients really, we need to pay the bills and feed the horses and ourselves. Enthusiastic clients though are the ones that keep our spark to teach ablaze.

Horse trainers and riding instructors like myself are generally horse crazy kids that turned into horse crazy grown-ups. They don't say to make money with horses you have to have a lot of money, to begin with for no reason. Choosing to live the horse life is not choosing an easy glamorous lifestyle. Though we wouldn't want it any other way and your average person can't understand why we do it, it the only life we know. It is hard though.

Working with enthusiastic clients that really want to learn is something we are always grateful for. When we see an inkling of the passion for horses and riding that we have in someone else, it makes us want to bust our butt to teach them and help them become the horsemen and women that they want to be.

When it is cold, or you are half sick or in a bad mood, teaching an enthusiastic group of kids or an enthusiastic adult can turn your whole day around. At least for me, it can.

I'm thankful to get to work with clients that understand that this is our livelihood. Though for them it is just sport or recreation, this is our job. We count on our riders to show up and pay.

If you ride in a lesson barn and want there to continue to be horses there for you to ride then you need to understand that this is our business. We rely on you to come and ride in order to pay the bills.

We ask you to prepay because if you decide at the last minute that you have something you would rather do besides ride, that is not our problem. We have horses mouths and our own mouths to feed and we need to know we have a reliable income.

Clients who understand this are a pleasure to work with and make us feel like all our hard work is appreciated.

I work out of the farm that has been in my family for years. I'm so grateful that the farm is still in our family and I intend to keep it that way.

Even trainers and instructors who work out of other facilities are grateful for those opportunities. You can have all the teaching ability and riding ability in the world, without a farm to build our businesses out of, we are out of luck.

I think it is safe to say that all instructors and trainers are grateful for all the farms that they have had the opportunity to teach out of and allow us to do what we love.

Not to mention a great appreciation for anyone who wants to preserve farmland for whatever purpose, we need more of those people. We are grateful for the ones we have. That is a whole different article for another day though!

We are thankful for our cell phones. The fact that we can shoot quick text messages to our customers about lessons or what not, saves us a ton of time.

Some people, like myself, are even now using scheduling apps to help us run things more smoothly. I never would have thought that I would admit that I, being OCD, could trust my schedule to a phone app! I'm admitting it though, on the internet for everyone to read that it does make things a lot easier.

Also, when it comes to phones, I find it really beneficial to be able to get short videos of my clients so they can see themselves and what I'm talking about. It really helps connect the dots for some students.

Also, if you take videos from time to time it is fun to look back and see a video from "this time last year" and see how far you have come, or what you need to still work on.

If you are running your business out of a farm like mine without an indoor. Good weather is what makes our world go round and keeps our farms up and running.

Too many rainy days or frozen ground can put a serious damper on our business. Whenever we have long spells with good weather, we are grateful!

We are thankful when the weather is cool enough that our horses can work comfortably and not be driven mad by flies. While still being warm enough that our fingers and toes aren't freezing when we get off.

I can say honestly, beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I hadn't had the trainers I rode with over the years I would not be the horsewoman I'm today. They all gave me many opportunities to learn, they pushed me when I needed to be pushed and showed me what the horse world is all about. Hard work and dedication.

I'm thankful for all the trainers I have ridden with personally, as well as clinicians I have seen or read articles by over the years. I never read or watch anything with horses without taking something from it. I'm thankful for all those learning opportunities.

We are grateful for the horses. People like us living the horse life, busting our butts to make a living doing what we love, we are thankful for the horses. Every single one we have ever encountered.

The saintly lesson horses that allow us to teach horse crazy kids, to the horses that frustrated us and really turned us into real riders.

Without our horses are life is incomplete. For all the hard work, trouble, money spent and broken bones the horses and the horse life are a part of us and always will be.

When you are horse crazy to the extent most trainers and instructors are, you always will be no matter what! We are forever grateful for our horses and the horsey life that they give us.