#I'll learn to manage better as i age but I'll never have a stable job or/and get married and have 2.5 kids and a house

[mbrainspaz]

I'm stuck in a strange place in the horse industry, different from the strange place I used to be. It's all down to the fact that I snuck in through the service entrance, metaphorically. Also literally. Ever since I finally bought my own horse I've been marginally accepted into the social circle of the barn I work at. I'm still noticeably an outsider but there is a level of respect as a 'fellow horse owner' I didn't experience before. Horse ownership isn't a direct ticket to that respect because you can easily be written off as a Bad horse owner if you're no good at it. That's worse than not being a horse owner. I seem to have passed that bar at least.

The next hurdle to acceptance is being seen as a competent rider, and that's a doozie. To be seen as a competent rider you have to pay for gear and lessons and trainers. I have some talent and some skill left over from the sporadic lessons my parents paid for when I was a teenager, but my reputation definitely suffers from the 10 year gap where I could barely afford to touch a horse and from my low status as a stable hand. I used to be a barn manager, was supposed to still be a manager, but that's a tangent.

A nearby barn recently reached out to me with an opportunity to be a trainer and I tried to just roll with it. They saw two videos of me riding and immediately wrote me off. It's so frustrating. Whatever. Stupid job probably had shit pay anyway, AND they had ties to the same damn white supremacists I've been trying to get away from ever since I moved out here. Ugh. Don't even get me started on that rot.

I still want to improve. I just can't afford a trainer who could help me at my riding level and at my age. There's a difference between a $45 kids' lesson and a $150 dressage lesson. Even if I wanted to throw my housing savings fund away I can't just go out and pick a trainer who does $150 lessons. It doesn't help that a bunch of the trainers who saw me doing my best to ride (after 10 years of not riding) immediately dismissed me as 'not worth their time' and have refused to teach me even if I could afford them. I've been working to improve for a year on my own but I can't seem to get that respect back no matter where I look. It's so frustrating it makes me want to scream into my saddle pad. I'm SORRY I'm not another rich brat who had easy access to everything they ever needed to succeed in this stupid bougie industry. I'm sorry my saddle is trashy, my riding pants are hand-me-downs, and my boots are the ones I got for my 12th birthday. Sorry I'm a bit disabled and my horse is old. I'm doing my best. That doesn't matter. I feel like I'll never escape being seen as the local peasant who, at best, gets pats on the head for trying.

A respected German trainer saw me riding the other day and had a lot of good things to say. I know I've improved and gotten back to a decent level. Did I understand what the hell he was saying while he was praising me? Barely. He had no interest in actually training me either.

I've heard of success stories where poor riders were taken on as proteges by trainers who put them on paths to successful riding careers. That's how one of my former bosses supposedly made it. But I'm already too old for that to ever happen, even if it were a reasonable thing to hope for. And who knows how honest those 'success stories' really were about their struggles. Sometimes you'll hear a story about a rider who beat the odds and it's like, 'their family only had ONE mansion.'

Honestly ever since I realized I was doomed to be labelled An Outsider at like age 16 I've loathed their exclusive insider club bullshit so much that I don't even want in. I just want to be allowed to ride and learn to ride better, and they're still gatekeeping that from me. All it would take is for one person with a little bit of pull in the industry to see me and believe in me. Never gonna happen.

I haven't even addressed the existence of the class of non-bougie horse owners here. There's another, less respected path into the industry that is 'being poor but having parents who own a piece of land where they live in a leaky trailer but still have horses.' I don't even have that level of respect as a first time horse owner. Those kids who were poor but raised with horses are the only ones who actually seem to have a chance. I'm totally lost somewhere between those people and the rich kids who had it all given to them. My parents paid for a few lessons but hated horses and, I found out much later, actively worked to sabotage any social progress I made because they didn't want me to go down what they saw as the spoiled horse brat pipeline. Mission accomplished I guess.

I'm stuck between floors on this elevator ride and nobody is coming to help me.

At least I'm stuck in the metaphorical elevator with my horse. He's the only reason I've stuck it out this long.

When he's gone I'll probably ditch this dream and this stupid snobby industry for good and never look back.

#horse industry #personal problems #saturday rant #horse stuff #life of a texan peasant