What's the worst or funniest piece of advice you have ever received regarding horses?

What's the worst or funniest piece of advice you have ever received from a trainer, another student, or a non horsey person? Please include all three if you can and any one else who has given you bad or funny bits of advice when it comes to horses. I thought this might be rather interesting to hear from everybody.What's the worst or funniest piece of advice you have ever received regarding horses?
non-horsey person: ';horse back riding isn't a sport. and you don't have to do any work, so you should find something else to do.'; *rolls eyes*


another student: ';you need to hold your reins tighter.'; (which is funny, coming from someone on an english saddle who rides at a primarily western stable, meaning, she should know better by now. western reins are supposed to have more slack than english reins cause you neck rein)


trainer[the funniest]: ';be careful! you have to sneak up really slowly and throw the lead rope over her neck or she'll get away!';(advice from a trainer, not mine, after she attempted to catch my mare to no avail, after trying for about 15 minutes. i then proceeded to say something to my horse, and she walked directly up to me and put her nose in the halter)What's the worst or funniest piece of advice you have ever received regarding horses?
I have some worst ones. A western ';trainer'; who told me you need to put a horse into a curb (leverage) bit before you can teach collection.





I was working on leg yields (two tracking) in the arena once when a student there for a lesson came over to me and told me I needed to get some spurs and work into the wall so I could get my horse to side pass correctly. That one is as funny as it is worst, I guess.





Most of what non-horse people say is either funny just ill informed...I can't think of a worst or funniest offhand.
Worst- to make your horse more collected and get a slower job/lope for western, tie cement blocks to their hind legs and have them drag them around. The added weight will train them to go slower.





Worst part of it? The person who told me this regularly uses the practice. I am really, really surprised one of her horses haven't broken their legs yet.





Another favorite of mine is that if you ever discipline your horse, it will hate you, and never let you near it. Woman who told me that had the most unmanagable horse ever :)
A man who told every one he was a trainer informed us that ';horses can't live anywhere there's been cows';. Perhaps one of the most ignorant things i've ever heard.





One that doesn't bother me because it was a well meaning young lady:


I had my horses picketed in a yard where we were ';camping'; in town and a girl came up to knock on the door and tell me she ';didn't think our horses should be tied up because she has horses and knows that if they spook, well that would be bad';. She wanted to help but Obviously I also have horses and I know that they tie fine and were under supervision. I ended up making them spend the night in the trailer because you never know how intense some people are. I didn't want to find a group of teenagers ';rescuing'; my horses io the dark.
My first English lesson, I was being taught by my trainer's very capable 13 y/o daughter (with him in the ring giving a more advanced lesson on the other half). He happened to look over as I was doing a sitting trot, and yelled (in his thick German accent) ';Little girl on the pony! Sit on your butt!'; That's stuck with me to this day, and it always make me laugh.





The same daughter once screamed at me to ';sit on my @$$';, which also stuck with me because she hardly ever yelled (apparently I had a recurring problem...).
I guess i don't have any advice, but it makes me laugh how non-horsey persons are completely clueless! Like how they say riding isn't a sport. One person even had the nerve to ask me if they could ride my horse, stating that they never rode before, but they were sure they could figure it out. I had to laugh at that one.
ok, when i was first learning how to ride, i was having trouble getting my horse into the canter, my parents told me to firmly say Canter! another student told me to put one arm out front parallel to his neck, and the other right out behind me, because they thought it made him feel my balance better... lol!!!!
One time my boyfriend's brother was trying to tell me how to ride my own horse. Granted, I've been riding nearly 11 years now, and he's ridden maybe one hour total throughout his life.





Needless to say, I sat him up on my horse, who promptly decided to go on a wild bucking spree. Once the brother got back up I smiled and said ';How was your free flying lessons? I hope you enjoyed the flight!'; and got him back onto my horse, and put him through a very rough 30 minute work out. The next day he was crying from sore muscles (And this guy is a firefighter).





Something I always hear from people who don't know much about horses is ';OMG! You PULL their mane?! How could you be so cruel?!';
No one told me this, but I read that one guy wanted to teach his horse to stop rearing, so he filled a beer bottle full of ketchup, and when the horse reared, he smashed it on the horses head. He thought that the ketchup would make the horse think that it had busted its head. Horses aren't that dumb. They can smell the ketchup. I thought it was pretty stupid.
Once my trainer told me that to help my balance i hould backflip off my horse. let's just say i didn't land well.





Oh and people ho don't rode are just hilarious. I can't even tell you how many times someone has said something ridiculous to me.
English saddles ruin the conformation of a horse and give a horse sway back. (This lady is a breeder)





It's easy to ride a horse all you have to do is sit and kick while pulling on the reins for the direction you want to go.
My friend use to take lessons at a barn. One day she saw my horse laying down and told me that if he lays down for over 10 miniutes he will die. i just had to laugh. She said that was what her trainer said.
My friend told me that she was once peed on by a horse. I guess it's not advice, but it's a lesson to watch the horse at all times.
This from a non horse person: You never say sshhhh to your horse, because then the horse thinks you are a snake and will be afraid of you. LOL
My neighbor thought I was stupid or my horse being scared of my saddle pad...he thought I was putting the saddle on backwards...*cough*
The hardest thing about riding is the ground.
'lean forward when trotting!!!!!!!!'





LOL
To get rid of rain-rot spots use pickle juice or mouth wash. It worked. :D
I had a friend with a farm right along a busy road, and I can't tell you how many times she'd get a call that one of her horses was dead in the field. Horses do lay down to sleep sometimes! Sheesh...





When I was a kid, I got a job at a little dump of a lesson stable grooming and tacking horses up before their lessons and cleaning up afterwards. The lady who ran the barn was clearly clueless. It was so bizarre that I kept thinking I must be on Candid Camera!





First, she told me to grab saddles and put them on the horses. She said it did not matter which saddles for which horses since they all fit the same. Many of the saddles did not fit well, and tipped backwards with the pommel (front) much higher than the back of the saddle. This was due to a combination of poor saddle fit and swaybacked horses. Well, in the tack room I had seen a pile of those foam lollypop shaped riser pads that lift the back of the saddle , so I asked her if I should use them. She told me that those were only for dressage saddles and since these were huntseat or ';forward seat'; lessons the saddle was supposed to sit higher in the front.





Then, she proceeded to have all her students posting on the wrong diagonal. When I questioned her about this, she gave me some b.s. answer and ignored me. The next day she told me that she learned from a British instructor, and they post on the opposite diagonal from American riders. That was a good one...





Finally, she told me that there was one horse who I had to make sure only the advanced riders tried to ride. She said the horse was very fussy about rein contact, and if a rider pulled too hard she would toss her head violently and even rear. Well, the horse had the harshest curb bit I've ever seen (for an English riding program too!). When I asked why the horse with the most sensitive mouth had such a harsh bit, she told me that that's the bridle that came with the horse when she bought her at auction. Like I was some moron. Duh! Obviously the bridle that came in the package deal with the horse is the only one you can use. It's not like you can change the bit or anything...





Needless to say, I quit that job after only a few days.
Idk I have had alot