Cindy the Horse Trainer: A Masterclass in Abuse

My daughter bought a horse this fall with money she inherited from a deceased relative.

My wife and I don't know anything about horses. We apparently don't know much about buying horses, either, because we ended up supporting Rab in her purchase of Petunia (pictured above on one of her better days), a.k.a Stream (as Rab later renamed her) a.k.a that demon beotch whose skull I am going to mount as a trophy (as I later renamed her). Stream had issues. Big time. We thought we were getting a horse trained to jump, who was good with kids, and who was a gentle and kind pony. None of these things turned out to be true. We got one hell of a fiery mean vicious human-hating mongrel who would do anything to get a rider off her back and showed absolutely no will to work. Bucking? Got it. Rearing? Got it. Biting, she'll try. This last one was the final straw for us. Happened a few months ago. She turned and snapped at my daughter and I took the reins and let Stream know her time with our family was finished.

In the midst of this mess, which turned out to be positive, as it was a homeschool experience and no doubt my daughter learned more about horsemanship, selling, buying, trust, the truth of the marketplace, and human nature than she ever would have learned had Stream been what we thought she was going to be or had my daughter been sitting in the usual fifth grade class, in the midst of all of this, for a brief time, we worked with a trainer named Cindy. We had known of Cindy before we bought Stream. Our gut instinct on Cindy was that she too was a mess. For years my daughter has been going to a ranch to take lessons. We ran across Cindy a few times. She struck us as a blowhard and a bit of a bully. Whenever she had a criticism of the place, or the events there, she always turned to the horse lesson person and asked her to do something about it (as in, that person is using an umbrella, tell them to close it, and the person using the umbrella is standing three feet from Cindy). Once she referred to my wife as "that blonde woman". You know how you can sense a person's energy, their overall vibe, when you see them far away, and see them walking? Cindy put off the vibe of an angry heifer who knows her end is coming and is going to go out mauling someone fast. Not friendly, at all. But, when you're in the you know what, have spent money to get this demon with four legs who your kid has given a stocking to for Christmas and who is going to get treats brought to them on Christmas day and who you're pretty sure has her ears back all the time, you start to reconsider things. Which is a fallacy in its own right -- and totally on us. We were doing, early on in this debacle -- an appeal to consequence. We couldn't yet face the fact that Stream was a nightmare and needed to be put away -- to accept that meant we would have to accept we made a mistake and, as much fun as this horse idea is, it's over at best, dangerous more than likely. So we turned away from our first impressions of Cindy and said, well, when you're in the crapper, got to go for it I guess.

Here, then, we turned ourselves to Cindy, savior, who a few months ago we had rightly pegged as a nutjob. Well, eight hundred dollars in lessons and another five hundred dollars in Cindy's Recommended Gear and the heifer showed her true nature and put us down.

Who knew buying a horse could be so much FUN??? By the way, if you want to see us laugh about all of this, because why not, make sure to check out Lucy Drake Horse Trainer, a rab special video series coming up!

Anyway, back to Cindy.

We spent a month with her, two times a week, at 60 bucks a throw. Then she took thanksgiving off. Over thanksgiving week we decided to watch a bunch of Buck Brannaman videos (Of Buck, the Sundance film), and work with Stream ourselves. We had a pretty good time of it. This was the beginning of something good for our family, to tell you the truth. We had run headlong into a nightmare (wait, this horse is going to try to buck our kid off?) and had been surprised, had handed our trust to Cindy the horse trainer, and had no time to make any kind of peace with all of this or do anything fun as a family. So we decided to rent these videos and watch them and learn more about horse training and try stuff out.

Well.

Turns out taking initiative, developing some fun family rituals, taking responsibility for your own safety and your kid's, and attempting to learn something new is a bad bad idea in the horse training world. At least if the horse training methods involved are...drum roll...thunder strike...scary music...

NATURAL HORSEMANSHIP.

Apparently to true equestrians like Cindy, natural horsemanship or anything like it is the work of the devil, and thus, all who engage in it need to be destroyed.

One Monday morning I was out with my daughter at the farm and Stream was being a punk again and not doing anything my daughter asked. We'd watched a Buck Brannaman video about turning their hindquarters as a way to reset their engine, get them to move their legs and calm down and take charge on the ground. So I took the horse, moved its legs around in a circle and handed the horse back to my kid.

I moved its butt.

And apparently someone was watching this, because apparently this isn't "true equestrianism" and so thus, apparently, we had what for coming. Because someone passed the word along to Cindy and that night we received a text.

Before we received the text in question, we were paid up for another month of lessons, we had told Cindy we were in it for the long haul, we had heard Cindy tell us of Stream's history and how she was behaving this way because she had been ridden in a martingale, which is a device that locks the head of a horse down and basically forces them to do what the rider wants, we had agreed not to use a martingale anymore even though it would have, conceivably, prevented Stream's crazy behavior, because we agreed with Cindy that it was abusive and we wanted Rab to learn to train horses and have a "bond" with the horse, which is what Rab wanted really bad, so sure, we'll take it slow, spend months retraining this ten year old horse, put our kid potentially in harm's way, we will trust you, and we will listen, and we will work, we will take the hard road to do the right thing because we agreed it was bad to treat a horse this way and now that she was our responsibility we wanted to set it right. We said this, and for over a month, we did it. Five times, six times a week, out there doing ground work with this horse, to try to soften her up and get her to trust and like us, because, after all, this is what our big cheese trainer told us was the best thing to do, that it could be done, and she could help us do it. And besides, none of us wanted to have a horse we kicked around, as much as, you can tell, Stream later earned all of my ire, at the time we did really hope to retrain her, fix her up, help her out, and do the right thing. We demonstrated this time and time again, even after Cindy's lesson where Stream reared while under her control, endangering our kid. We were in. We said, you know what, we're gonna try to work this out. It is so stupid looking back on it now how far we were willing to go. I am angry as I write this, for reasons that are about to be made clear, but in those days in late fall and early winter, we were in.

But, apparently, moving a horse's butt once, while not having a clue what natural horsemanship is, and just wanting to do something good as a family together for a horse that was a mess in order to salvage something good from all of this, make something of this homeschool experience, and help your kid, merits this kind of response.

Because that night we got this text. It is an absolute master class in the use of fallacies to abuse others. There is much to learn from it. Cindy is a horrible trainer and an even worse teacher, but she is an absolute master at manipulating language to insult, demean, and degrade others. It was not fun receiving this, we ripped her a new one right and left for it, the fall out from it cost us a few friendships which turns out were as empty as Stream's messed up head, but in the end the truth sets you free, we're on to better things and in a better place (and so is Stream), and now we have this to share with you. Without further ado, the text in full, then we'll break it down.

Good evening. It seems we might be working on opposite sides of the teaching spectrum. I respect your choice to do what ever type of training you choose. I will not confuse Stream or the three of you. I will refund your money for the month. I spoke about natural Horsemanship multiple times and it is 100% opposite of my philosophy. It is fear based training. I take this very seriously.

Okay. To start.

"Good evening".

Prejudicial language of a sort. Prejudicial language is using slanted language to cast your arguments and those who hold them in the best light. All "good" Christians know you have to go to church every Sunday, for instance. So...Good evening. Formal language, pretentious, high-minded, "traditional". She's casting herself as the professional, as the well-spoken and genteel person in the conversation here. Might want to work on that grammar there Cindy if you're going to pull that off. But no matter. This kind of language continues through the text in phrases such as "it appears" and "spectrum" and so forth. You can just imagine someone like the judge from Caddyshack speaking this way. And who talks like this in a text? Cindy does. Good evening.

Okay. Crap. Called to the principal's office by someone who thinks they are the principal. Because yes, there is a bit of appeal to authority there as well. Good evening. A cop knocking on your door might say that, or a funeral director inviting you in to his service. You are being talked down to a bit. It's coming. And it does.

It appears we might be operating at opposite ends of the teaching spectrum.

Prejudicial language much. Formal. Pretentious. I am high-minded and knowledgeable and a serious horse trainer because I use phrases like this, therefore what I say is you know, what I just said. Blah blah blah. Or you're someone who stands on appearance, language, tone, because you have nothing else. But for now...there's that. But then there's more:

Operating at opposite ends of the teaching spectrum.

False dilemma. There is a spectrum, supposedly, but we are at opposite ends. She's on one side, the high-minded side, because look -- she's speaking high-minded. And thus we are on the other, and if we are on the other, it must be the dirty gross side, because look again it's a spectrum, after all she had the perspicacity to say spectrum, so then we must suck? Yep, attack the messenger is built into all of this with her language. So we're on opposite sides, because she says so, because she creates the false dilemma, and because she is who she is, and because she says she's high-minded and awesome, we suck, because after all, we are on the side that sucks.

But, no need to even read into it or guess because she goes that much further next:

I respect your choice to do what ever type of training you choose. I will not confuse Stream or the three of you. I will refund your money for the month. I spoke about natural Horsemanship multiple times and it is 100% opposite of my philosophy. It is fear based training. I take this very seriously.

All the respect talk is butt-covering. It's more attacking the messenger, more prejudicial language, more an attempt to demonstrate her good graces by granting us some kind of gift as she kicks us out there door. She is saying “I respect” while ending the relationship. And she's doing it over a text. Without a phone call, a conversation in person, any chance to actually clear up any misunderstanding with people she knows are green. But, she justifies all of this with her false dilemma, which is now spelled out. She does not do natural horsemanship. Natural horsemanship is fear based. Natural horsemanship is evil. She takes it very serious. And she has warned us numbskulls about this a number of times already.

So, that last part just isn't true. She came up to my daughter once before when my daughter was trying something she saw on a youtube video and told her to stop, and that was it.

But now we see into the mind of Cindy, and indeed, sadly, a lot of horse people. There is this hard and fast dichotomy between whatever natural horsemanship is and whatever anything else is. My wife and daughter and I had no clue there was any distinction, we just watched some Buck videos because he talks about trying to understand the language of the horse, the same thing Cindy talked about all the time, and we thought it was cool. We were excited, as we later told her, to talk to her about this. We had no idea there was some hard and fast distinction, we were just having fun with the horse. Or trying to. But because I moved her butt once this proved we were natural horsemanship people, who were alright with fear, who understood there was this distinction, and who had secretly gone behind the high-minded Cindy's back to do things that were base and gross and evil, and now she in her wisdom was going to respect us by letting us go over a text sent a day before the next lesson, instead of clearing this up in person with a ten year old kid she had looked in the eye and said yes, I will help you.

What a you know what.

Now, this is where it becomes abuse. Because this is where someone acts aggressively and immorally to someone else and then blames them for the behavior they have received. Someone, Cindy in this case, has set up a hard and fast determination of what is good and what is bad. They walk through the world looking for any signs of the bad, no matter how small, and the minute that they see those signs, they lash out and destroy anyone engaged in those behaviors because they label, permanently, once and for all, anyone engaged in those behaviors as bad, and thus, since those people are bad, they deserve whatever they have coming, because, after all, they're on that side of the spectrum, and so the abuser gets to tell the abused they deserve it while the abuser pats themselves on the back and the abused...does what exactly, for having done what...exactly?

The hypocrisy is stunning. Someone acts like this while saying they are "against fear based training", when in reality what they’re doing with their students and parents is setting up a temple where all must bow to them, because they have made it clear that the minute anyone shows any hint of a transgression they will be cast out once and for all. This hypocrisy revealed itself in the end, when I let Cindy know just how unprofessional she was, how uncaring and disrespectful to the student/teacher relationship she had been, and how much I believed she shouldn't be working with children anymore, period. She responded with a threat. "Do not ever question my professionalism again!" she said. Pretty funny. Someone wagging their finger and shouting and threatening clients she's just trashed for no reason, who as a result have the gall to question her professionalism, letting them know she is a professional. Yep. Pretty funny.

And pretty sick.

But, back to the world of reality. In reality, there's a horse that needs some help. In reality, someone has been paid money to help. In reality, there is presumably a relationship between student and teacher developing. In reality, you do what you got to do to fix the horse and get after it. In reality, none of what Cindy was spewing was true. My wife and I had no idea what natural horsemanship is. We still don't get the distinction. Most real trainers we've since talked to say they use all sorts of methods. It would appear that perhaps someone like Cindy is merely trying to create a mystique for herself to continue to bilk money from kids and parents because more and more nobody really sees these distinctions any more.

At least, if you were going to make such hard and fast claims, you'd think you'd hear the other side out, if you are indeed in any kind of learning situation or collaborative relationship that mattered and you were...a professional. To be blunt, if you really did hold to any high-minded ideals that, throughout the course of human history have shown themselves to be valuable, you may have chosen to act differently. One can imagine that embracing ideals such as justice, compassion, mercy, and grace might have created a different outcome in this situation and might be called for when you are, oh well you know, working with children and their dreams.

But no, that would be beneath her. After all, she said good evening.

My wife and I told Cindy all of this and that we had no idea what she was talking about, but she didn't care. She pushed harder in her next text. So we unloaded on her and gave her all she deserved. We let her know just what a piece of garbage we thought she was and still do think she is, by the way, and have no problem with her or anyone else at that shitbox ranch reading this.

It’s abuse. Plain and simple. Create self-serving dichotomies. Label anyone who is on the other side as evil. Take high-minded positions towards yourself, as you blame others for the hits you unload on them. And remember to pat yourself on the back for it.

Some people suck.

Some people use fallacies to destroy, control, demean and degrade. Some people would turn logic and reality on its head so that they can live in a world that furthers their own ego. Some people, like Cindy, will do this at seemingly any cost.

There is only one way to meet these people, in my opinion. And that is head on. You want to play those games, come and get it sister.

Freedom from Fallacy score:

-By Pa