A solid horse takes hundreds of hours to make.
You either put in the effort or pay someone to do it. Or you buy a good one, which is also paying someone else for having done the hard stuff and hoping it’s true. Those are your options, all equally valid.
Lately it appears to have become fashionable in the horse world – nonprofits included, and maybe it’s not just the horse industry? – to either not pay at all, to put it off for when it’s convenient or to look for bargain basement prices to begin with.
Let me tell you something. It’s not cute.
If you need heart surgery, are you going to hand the guy on the corner a knife and 5 bucks to cut you open? No. You’re going to pick a surgeon with years of training and experience because you don’t want to die just yet. And you’re going to be prepared for that to cost a whole lot of $, right? Because after all you’re entrusting that person with your life.
IT’S NO DIFFERENT WITH A HORSE TRAINER. Especially a Mustang trainer and/or colt starter. You’re hiring them to put their lives on the line so you don’t have to. Our work isn’t glamorous. It’s dangerous. And it’s critical. It sets the tone for your horse’s future.
By all means, pick carefully but freaking pay them and treat them well. We get tugged on, kicked and tossed so you can pick up your pony when it’s ready and enjoy it. Letting someone else do the dirty work to keep you safe is a LUXURY. Horses are a LUXURY. Read that again.
You’re not just paying them for the month or five they put into your horse, and for feeding it. You’re paying them for the decades of experience it took for them to do their job well so it doesn’t take you until your horse is 28 to get done what they can do in 8 weeks.
You’re also paying them to tell you uncomfortable truths. Me telling you a horse needs more time, isn’t a good fit for you or needs bodywork may save your life, tons of heartache and weeks in the hospital. You’re welcome.
I have 32 years of training horses, countless hours of learning, two relevant degrees, and hundreds of Mustangs under my belt. Our horses get adopted into homes all across the country and make people happy. Our Ambassador Mustangs handle and ride better than many domestics. They’re respectful and happy with a good foundation.
We have adopters telling us that their newly adopted Mustangs are the best behaved horses in the barn. Right after they get them home.
Not paying us, not being willing to pay a fair adoption and/or training fee for a horse we carefully took from unhandled and frantic to confident and friendly is disrespectful. It’s also stealing from a nonprofit, from the horses we care for, from our staff and the professionals we pay to provide resources and services for us, i.e. vet, farrier, hay supplier etc.
I’m a horse trainer. I’m a people educator. I’m a mental health professional. I don’t want a side gig as a bounty hunter.
MOST clients are amazing. Life does happens, we get it. Here too. That’s not what we’re talking about. But…
I’m truly sorry your pet dragon needed a horn transplant that cost 600 gold coins. Or that your grandfather’s niece’s 2nd cousin’s inheritance hasn’t reached you yet. Don’t make it our problem.
Our contracts are getting longer by the minute. As we said when I was working at a prison: “Yep, one screwed it up for everybody. Again.”
This isn’t just about us. It’s for all professionals. Rant over.
Pics from a ride last summer with Tay Martin , Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy Ambassador Mustangs Tiny and Lacy, and Spur who took the long and windy road to becoming a very good boy.
