The Culture Of No-Shows
On a warm May Saturday morning, my barn was bustling with activity. This of course was completely the norm – it’s the weekend, and owners and leasers were there to spend some quality time with their horses.
On the white board near the tack room listed the lessons the resident dressage trainer had in the arena that day. The list was long – it was a full day. But before late morning, the trainer came into the barn and erased all but one rider’s name from her list. The rest of the private, one-hour lessons had been canceled.
One by one, riders called or texted her with excuses on why they couldn’t be there that day. Suddenly, the trainer’s entire day had changed.
This is just one example of an ongoing, bubbling problem in the horse industry I keep seeing lately. Canceling a lesson or straight-up ghosting your trainer is just not acceptable under any circumstances. It’s highly unprofessional, and it puts trainers – whose income is based off the instruction they provide – in a precarious place.
Sure, the riders that day still paid for those lessons. This trainer had a 24-hour cancellation policy in place. But I can’t tell you how many posts I’ve seen lately on social media from horse industry professionals complaining about this very thing. It’s not your trainer’s responsibility to ensure that your children’s soccer practice doesn’t run long or that you’re hungover today. The excuses trainers have shared with me are really quite shocking. If you’re not ready to commit seriously to riding, that’s fine. But don’t waste a professional’s time.
I feel like this is tied to some sort of new cultural phenomenon, where some people in society feel like it’s completely OK to ghost someone and shatter plans they had made. Maybe it’s cool when you’re 17, but being held accountable for your words and actions is just part of being a responsible adult.
For many of us, horse sport is a hobby and it’s an expensive one. On the list of needs vs. wants, horseback riding is a frivolous ‘want’. But if it comes down to tightening your budget, be responsible. Don’t just not show up because you don’t want to pay for a lesson.