08/30/2026
“One of the hardest parts of being a riding instructor is taking your riders’ progress personally.
There are days when I leave the arena feeling like I made a difference. Something clicked. A rider found a piece they’ve been struggling with, their confidence grew, or I watched them do something they couldn’t do a month ago.
And then there are the days I leave wondering if I’m making an impact at all.
When a rider plateaus, I immediately start questioning myself. Am I explaining it wrong? Am I pushing too hard? Not pushing enough? Is there another exercise I should be using? What am I missing?
But I think one of the most frustrating parts of teaching is when the thing holding a rider back isn’t their ability.
It’s their own mind.
As a trainer, you can see what they’re capable of. You can see the rider underneath the nerves, the overthinking, the frustration, and the fear of getting it wrong. You know that if they could just breathe, trust themselves, and allow it to happen, they could go so much further than they realize.
And sometimes that progression is painfully slow.
Not because they aren’t talented. Not because they aren’t trying. But because you can’t physically reach inside someone else’s head and remove the mental block for them.
You can explain it 15 different ways. Change the exercise. Change the horse. Break it into smaller pieces. Encourage them. Push them. Back off. Give them time.
But eventually, they have to believe they can do it.
And as an instructor, that can be incredibly frustrating—not because you’re frustrated with the rider, but because you can see what’s waiting for them on the other side of that wall.
You can see the rider they’re capable of becoming long before they can see it themselves.
But progress with horses is rarely linear.
Sometimes the lesson that feels completely unproductive is actually laying the groundwork for something that clicks three weeks later. Sometimes the rider who feels “stuck” is quietly building balance, timing, feel, confidence, and muscle memory that isn’t obvious yet.
And sometimes, as instructors, we need the same reminder we constantly give our students:
You don’t have to make huge progress every ride for the work to be working.
I think good instructors take plateaus personally because we care. We don’t just want to fill an hour and collect a lesson fee. We want to teach. We want our riders to understand why. We want to watch them become independent, capable horsemen—not riders who need us standing in the middle of the arena forever.
So yes, sometimes I go home frustrated.
Sometimes I replay lessons in my head and wonder what I could have done differently.
Sometimes I wish I could make a rider see themselves through my eyes for five minutes—because maybe then they’d understand just how capable they really are.
Sometimes I worry that I’m not making enough of an impact.
And then a rider finally takes that breath.
They stop thinking about every little thing that could go wrong.
They trust their horse. They trust their body. They trust everything we’ve spent months building.
And suddenly, something we’ve been fighting for weeks just… happens.
That’s when I remember:
Maybe progress isn’t always something we get to see happening.
Sometimes we just get to plant it, water it, and wait. ❤️”
~ Jill
*Disclaimer: I can’t find the original source to give them credit for the quote.*
