I began riding when I was 10 years old, taking English lessons with Annie who threatened to beat me with the riding crop if I couldn’t get Peanuts to trot. I didn’t have Annie for long, as it was reported that she had a breakdown. Whether my inability to coax Peanuts to trot drove her to it, we’ll never know.

For the next instructor, I began riding in a group. Being the newest and weakest addition, I just did my best to keep up while he concentrated all of his efforts on the more advanced riders.

I spent the next four years riding with one alcoholic trainer who showed up for my lesson stinking of booze at 11 am. She introduced me to a flask of blackberry brandy when I grew anxious on my first mock hunt (I was 15 years old.)

Then it was two years with yet another alcoholic instructor who had me jumping fences as high as I was tall. A friend jokingly asked if I drove my instructors to drink.

At college I finally met capable, experienced instructors without any obvious vices. But the four years went quickly, and I was back home for graduate school, again trying to find a place to ride.

At a facility at home, I found instructors who just ran through the paces and pointed at fences. Some spent half of the lesson on their cell phones. Others chatted with instructors and barely took note of me. When I was assigned the palomino who threw the dressage trainer three times that week, I asked for a new instructor. But the manager said that they “don’t do that” regarding changing instructors. When I began getting the young privately owned horses to school during lessons that I was paying for, I decided I had had enough.

Maybe it’s the discipline, I wondered. So, I observed a dressage lesson at a well-known facility. I had been riding hunter/jumper/balanced seat, but I was now ready to try dressage. The dressage rider was working hard, and the instructor was berating her. As the rider passed the mirrors on the indoor arena wall, the instructor demanded, “What are you looking at? You’re nothing to look at!” The rider looked defeated. I had an immediate déjà vu to the verbal abuse from my mentally unstable and alcoholic instructors. I realized how fundamentally unacceptable these behaviors are that I had observed over the years among riding instructors. I realized then that I wanted to be a riding instructor for beginner students because I knew there was a much better way than insulting and humiliating students to teach and bring out the best.

As an instructor, I view lessons as partnerships among coach, rider and horse. Because of my negative experiences with my past instructors, I remain always mindful of the damage that an instructor can inflict upon a young rider. I still take lessons, as I always will, and when my previous instructor began berating me much the same way instructors of the past had, I halted in the center of the ring and prepared to dismount. “What? What are you doing?!?” she screamed. I answered: “I took abuse as a kid. I’m an adult now and a paying customer. I will not be spoken to that way.”

When it comes to instructing, remember that, number one, abuse (verbal or physical) of horse or rider is unacceptable. And, number two, this is a service industry, and the client is paying for the service. The client, therefore, deserves, respect, courtesy, the opportunity to learn, answers to questions and the instructor's undivided attention during their lessons.