29th January, 2010 Responsibility

If any of you are thinking about becoming an RA, one of the biggest lessons I have learned is that my responsibility starts and finishes at the start and finish of a session. I am always more than happy to give further advice by e-mail or phone if an owner has got stuck or wants to make further progress or indeed to go and visit again for the next stage. Whenever I do go back out again it's like going to meet a friend rather than a client. Nevertheless it's very easy to feel that it's your fault that the horse has got a problem in the first place and that it's your fault if it is not totally cured by the time you leave- all you can hope to do is to make a significant improvement for the horse and the owner! I think it stretches into the ego thing too and a sense of emotional attachment to every horse that you meet; in the end, they are not my horses and people are free to work the way I have suggested or any other way they want to.

Nothing in particular has triggered me to write this particular thread and I recognise that people buy horses with pre-existing issues so that it's neither of our faults that the horse is like that in the first place. When a horse comes from a harder type of home, he often feels freer to express his feelings when he gets to a new and more sympathetic one.