On internet forums it's so common to have threads criticising one trainer in favour of another that I thought I'd post a thread asking what positive traits you look for. Please think about their approach and attitude, as well as what they do. And please feel free to give examples, but don't just list trainers you like. Can be any sort of trainer, riding or behavioural.

I'm asking this partly out of personal interest and partly because I thought it would be nice for trainers to be able to see some positive traits people are looking for, rather than just the usual criticism.

Apologies to those of you who see this on multiple forums - I was interested to see what different groups of people thought so thought I'd post in different places.

For me, I think the most important trait is honesty. The ability to put the ego to one side and say "I don't know", or to be honest about what you are doing - I'm not a fan of punishment but I particularly hate it when people use punishment (either wittingly or unwittingly) and deny it, saying instead that they are "taking the horse's space away" - you just thumped it! I often cite Henry Blake in this context - he was a bit heavy-handed for my liking but when he used punishment he called it punishment - how often do you hear that these days?

Over to you....

Thanks
Catherine

I agree with honesty being an important factor in a trainer and being able to admit that they are sometimes out of their depth in certain cases, rather than carrying on and making things worse as their ego's won't allow them to admit mistakes.
The animal then is blamed and labelled 'untrainable', 'difficult', dangerous and so on.
Sue

[Repeating what I wrote in another forum]

I like to see a genuine love for horses, and for the horse being trained. It need not be sentimental; it may appear as respect, but it goes a bit further than respect. You know it when you see it.

Hi all,
I like trainers that put the responsibility totally on the person! To go with this, I like trainers with a good way with words that help people to realise what taking responsibility involves. I've recently reaslised just how powerful words can be and what a different persepctive it can give you on things depending on the words used. I recently went to see quite a well know trainer who exemplified both these qualities I like perfectly. He was talking about how in conventional training we're pretty much all taught to have the horse 'yield to pressure'. This is quite an interesting way of putting it as, in my experience, it tends to make people put the onus on the horse to be the one that's doing the yielding. In addition, if the horse doesn't yield the person then tends to do things to 'make' the horse yield. However, this trainer talked in terms of 'offering the horse a soft place to go'. How fantastic I thought - this puts the onus right back on the rider to be able to offer this soft place. It was interesting that in the whole clinic he had many phrases akin to this and the result was that most people totally ignored what their horse was doing and concentrated on getting things right themselves. The result of course, was that the horses went incredibly well too!
cheers,
Cath

As requirements for a trainer, I agree with honesty (with themselves, the owners and the horses); and a genuine love for horses (rather than ego stroking or emotional crutch); and not laying the blame on horses (often used as a cop-out by the trainer or to keep the owner emotionally propped and on side); and encouraging owners to take responsibility for what’s happening with the horses (by helping owners to see their, usually unconscious or inadvertant, influence on the cause of problems).

I also like trainers who see situations holistically. This avoids the dealing-with-the-symptoms approach to a problem. A holistic view brings so much more into the equation (including the human and environmental influences), which helps with information gathering prior to working out a route to real problem solving rather than symptom surpressing.

I agree, Cath, that words can be powerful. But it’s worth remembering that they can be powerfully misleading! I like to see the horse’s reactions to what the trainer is doing, rather than listen to what I’m being told is happening – been fooled that way before! Tuning the words out and focussing on the horse’s reactions can put a whole different perspective on things!

Words can be used cleverly to create a feelgood factor for the human about what they’re doing. An example, imo, would be Parelli’s ‘games’ or ‘carrot stick’. This use of words (whether intentionally misleading or not) doesn’t change what I’ve seen in the horses, who don’t look at all convinced it’s so much of a fun game for them.

In summary, the best trainers are those with a genuine love for horses who practice what they preach without letting their egos get in the way!

Hi Jan,
couldn't agree more about words often being misleading. However, I think when used well, from a trainer who has the best interests of the horse at heart, they can be powerful in helping people to get a better attitude and consequently to act better. This was definately the case with the trainer I recently saw.
I think the bottom line is, as you have said, to watch the horse - so many people don't do what they say they do. I often think that they might not even be deliberately misleading us - I've seen people make great changes on an intellectual level but their muscle memory (I guess) seems to keep taking them back to old patterns of working with a horse. I'm not even convinced that they realise themselves that what they're doing doesn't match the philosophy of what they're saying. The problem for me now, is that I'm so aware of this in other people that I overanalyse everything I'm doing with a horse and consequently end up a bit paralysed sometimes!! Anyone else have that problem??
all the best,
Cath