I [25F] am being undermined by another professional in my field [60sF] who used to have the client that I currently have.

Disclaimer: I am going to keep the details of my profession brief otherwise this will turn into a dictionary haha. It's a language of it's own, so if there are any details you need me to elaborate on, I will happily do so! Just want to keep this short for the sake of you all who the majority will be unfamiliar.

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I am a horse trainer and currently have a horse in training to be sold. He is awesome. Let's call the owner Kate, the horse Brownie and his previous trainer Beth.

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Beth trains a different style of riding than I do (called dressage). I also train her style, but at a basic level (All horses need basic dressage). She does it at a higher level. My expertise is in jumping. Beth consulted Kate that Brownie does not "Want" to do her style of training (basically, her METHODS didn't work with the horse - not the style of training, because as I mentioned I also train her style on a basic level and when I train the horse using different communication methods, he's more than willing to do dressage). Brownie came to me with the reputation of having a bad attitude and bucking Beth off. When he came to me, it was clear to me that the horse was in pain. We treated him and his attitude completely changed, and honestly the rest is history. He was with Beth for almost 2 years with little improvement. I have had him for 5 months and he has completely transformed as a horse.

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I am providing this information because I have an inkling that maybe Beth feels like I've "shown her up", in a sense. I mean...she had the horse for 2 years and didn't once think that the horse was in pain. I fixed his "attitude" issues within the first week of having him. To be honest, she should feel embarrassed about that. She thought he just wasn't behaving when really he was telling her in every way possible that he was hurting. One very basic rule of thumb as a horseback riding trainer is to never assume a horse has a bad attitude "just because" - horses don't hold grudges, they're very transparent and black and white. So honestly she should have known better. Anyways.

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My issue is, Beth is still communicating with Kate and tears apart snippets of videos of my training sessions with Brownie. She should ALSO know better than this. She's judging my training based off of less than 30 second videos, and putting thoughts in Kate's head. As a trainer, we know all the blood and tears we put into training these horses. It's so much more than 30 seconds, and training is always evolving, it's never "done". It would be ignorant to judge another trainer's methods based off of 30 seconds. Luckily, Kate is so supportive of my success as a young professional so none of this has translated to her as a cause of concern, however I am just annoyed that Beth is taking this as an opportunity to complain to Kate about things not being "perfect". Kate is an older amateur rider, so she is a little bit ignorant as to what goes into training a horse. So she can be swayed into thinking one way or another.

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For example, Brownie executed a difficult exercise (for those familiar, a lead change) for the first time not that long ago. It wasn't perfect, but it was his FIRST TIME and it was still better than many horses who have been doing lead changes for much longer. She complained to Kate that it wasn't 100% ideal, what a lead change SHOULD look like, etc etc and even suggested that maybe I needed to come by and watch one of her horses do a lead change, or even take a lesson with her. And I was just astounded. I could care less what she thinks because I know how difficult it was for Brownie to do the lead change, and that all he needs is time for it to get better, but I couldn't believe another trainer, who should KNOW BETTER, (it take some horses 6 months to ONE YEAR to develop a perfect a lead change), was saying something like this to MY CLIENT. If Beth thinks she could do it perfectly on him, why didn't she put the lead change on him? Etc, etc.

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Kate called me, and told me Beth made her aware of his less-than-perfect lead change, and wanted to discuss options for it to help him get better and offered to pay to send me to a clinic with Brownie and a local dressage trainer. I accepted because I love learning new methods, riding with other trainers, and I also wanted to appease Kate. But I explained to her the process, that I am already aware of what we need to work on and that she does not need to worry, and also told her I did not appreciate Beth communicating with her at all about Brownie's training as she is not longer his trainer and does not know what we are working on, and that if Beth has any sincere concern for his training, she can contact me directly and I'd be glad to hear what she has to say. Needless to say, it's been one month since Brownie first got his lead changes and they are now perfect, and we perfected the before the clinic... so...anyways. Also as a side note, this is the third time Beth has called Kate to mention something was less than perfect then Kate called me to discuss.

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I already blocked Beth from being able to see marketing videos of Brownie to prevent this from happening in the future. I've been trying to be the bigger person by just not caring, but Beth still has her previous ad up of Brownie and she communicates with me from time to time asking for updated videos. At first I didn't mind her keeping the ad up because that just helps me out, but now I want to cut all ties with Beth and her connection to Brownie and make it abundantly clear without being rude that she is no longer tied to this horse and needs to keep herself in check. I also have to be careful because Kate and Beth are kind of friends. I do not want to get petty, or ugly, I just want her to cut her ties with Brownie. How would you guys handle this situation?

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TL;DR Professional in my field is undermining my skills to my client and I'm getting tired of it.

Submitted July 25, 2019 at 06:39AM by banditdoris https://ift.tt/32S7gDW