Crescendo Training Centre, LLC

On The Importance of Choosing Quality Professional Health Care Providers for Your Horse--By Kriss Phelps

The horse trainer wears many hats in the course of her job.  Her ultimate job is to use all of the tools in her toolbox to help the horse be the very best that they can be.  This task encompasses much more than actual horse training.  There are many concerns that can sideline this goal.  Lameness issues, alignment issues, body issues, feet issues, joint issues, teeth issues, etc. all play a huge part in the finished product. 

The inexperienced trainer doesn't understand that the trainer must be the director who orchestrates all of the other specialists.  A horse with feet that hurt is not a willing student, good mover or a horse that is going to stay sound for very long.   Those sore feet will end up causing chiropractic issues, back pain, hock pain, etc. while the horse is trying to keep weight off of those painful limbs.

 When symptoms of a problem start cropping up without someone putting together the pieces, the symptoms may get treated.  This will cause them to be chronic problems as their underlying cause is not being addressed.  Sometimes figuring out these puzzles can be like peeling an onion.  You fix one issue and another one, that was there all along but not obvious yet, pops up begging to be solved.

Therefore, one of the horse trainer's most important assets is the power of observation.  A good trainer looks for patterns, as these patterns can direct you to the cause of the problems.  Once the actual cause is determined, a plan of action for treatment/cure/prevention can be arrived at. 

It is at this point that one of the trainer's second most important jobs come into play; hiring professionals for the horses in their care.  It is the horse trainer's job to surround themselves with professionals that know more than the trainer about their specialty.  Furthermore, it is the trainer's job to know enough about each specialty to ask the proper questions to determine if the professional knows more than them.  If they don't, they need to keep looking for one that does.  If the trainer cannot in good conscience accept most suggestions from their chosen professionals, then they need to hire new professionals. 

Each professional has their own area of expertise, such as: veterinary work, breeding, farrier work, dentistry, massage therapy, chiropractic, etc.  It is not the trainer's job to do their job, just to know enough about it to ensure that each horse in their care gets the proper care that they need.  It is also the trainer's job to fire the professionals that aren't providing care that is up to standards. 

Those professionals that are incompetent, or worse, unethical or dishonest need to be given their walking papers, regardless of whether or not they are "nice people".  Each professional that doesn't do the job well that they were hired to do give the rest of the equine industry a black eye and potentially eliminate another owner from the equine industry, cause the trainer many unnecessary headaches, and the horse many unnecessary heartaches.

The incompetent or dishonest providers range from people who don't know how to perform their jobs well to those who fail to do their jobs entirely.  One end of the spectrum is that the professional performs the service, but not adequately.  In other words, the teeth were floated, but not up to industry standards.  The other end of the spectrum as I've experienced it was when I got three horses in for training that were supposedly gelded.  These horses were very wild when they came in and after sometime of training them, it was discovered that although the owners had paid to have them gelded, only one out of three actually were.

The real problem with these professionals is that the unsuspecting trainer or owner who utilizes their services believes that they have had this necessary service performed on their horse, and go forward on the assumption that those areas should not be causing any training or health issues.  The horse is the ultimate loser in this scenario. 

Many times a horse will come into a trainer's barn from the owners or another trainer's barn.  The trainer is told that the horse is "up to date" on routine care.  This includes vaccinations, hoof and dental care, deworming, etc.  This statement may not be accurate, depending on the knowledge and/or diligence of the person choosing the professionals in charge of providing that care.  There are many levels of expertise and diligence in health care.   Not everyone who hangs out their shingle as a farrier is qualified to shoe horses for a particular type of riding and even  those qualified will not all return the same quality of work.

For example, two farriers can shoe the same horse and although they may both shoe the horse technically correctly, one may shoe the horse more appropriately for the style of riding that the horse is asked to do.  Ultimately their proficiency will have a dramatic effect on the trainer's finished product.  While a good dentist/vet/farrier cannot "make" a good trainer, bad providers can surely negatively impact even good trainers efforts. 

Many times the trainer is the horses only voice or advocate.  If the trainer doesn't possess the knowledge to hear/understand what the horse is trying to communicate or doesn't bother to listen the horse ends up without advocate or voice and is labeled a "bad horse".   I have met many horses that have been through several of these people (trainer and/or owners) and have developed a really bad attitude as a result.  Most times these horses can be rehabilitated, but it's much easier and less stressful and painful to the horse to prevent it than to fix it.

A horse cannot speak with our words, so one of the trainer's most important jobs is to figure out when they encounter resistance, where the resistance is coming from.  Once the source is understood, you can proceed with a plan to address the problem(s).  Until the source of the trouble is discovered, the trainer will be barking up a lot of wrong trees in an attempt to fix the problem.

The upshot of all this is that it is the trainer's job to ensure that the horses in her care are getting the very best care available.  If this goal is met, it is infinitely much easier for the horses to do their job.  This means understanding that not all professionals are created equal.  Seek out and hire only the best and the rest will take care of itself.  Stack the deck in your favor and enjoy your horse!