Great jumping instructor recommendations please

[XelaM]

My teenager dreams of a career as a rider. As unrealistic (and expensive) as it may be, I want to help her give it her best shot. She's doing fairly well placing at various BSJA shows and is currently at a kids-focused jumping yard that has definitely improved her riding, but she wants to get to the "next level" and I don't think anyone at her yard wants to go beyond recreational riding/low level competing (at least her friends don't and the yard doesn't really have anyone competing at international or even high national level).

She wants to do a clinic or a camp (if that even exists) to be seen by a fresh pair of eyes and for a high-level instructor to really assess her/her pony. Not being from the horse world, I have absolutely no clue what I'm talking about and I can only guess that top instructors have enormous waiting lists and don't take on kids off the street. But how to get to even be seen by one?

Could anyone recommend a clinic that we could sign up for? We're in London but could travel of course (ideally not too far).

I'm also concerned that her current instructor is very well-connected in the BSJA world and would take offence at us trying to be seen by someone else. I'm not sure how to navigate this without burning bridges, as they are a very good (old-school) instructor. A fall-out would also mean we would have to move yards (jumping yards recommendations would also be welcome 😂).

Any advice on how to go about this and recommendations much appreciated.

Borehamwood
https://www.mhsporthorses.co.uk/

Has she joined her local BS Academy and attended Camp? https://www.britishshowjumping.co.uk/training/Academies-1 I don't think this would offend her instructor, but would open up other instructors for your daughter.
I'd recommend join Pony Club if younger especially. Her branch will organise training by ability so she'll learn with others of similar ilk. If she's talented there are schemes her DC can put her forward for specialised training, and also to be selected to jump at prestigious shows eg Royal Windsor.
My DD's favourite instructor at a higher level is Nick Gauntlett, he's an eventer and an excellent coach. She was lucky enough to attend a 16+ camp at his yard a couple of years running and gain lots from him. http://www.gauntlett.me.uk/index.html

The best of the best IMO would be Di Lampard but I don’t imagine she coaches anyone not on junior teams anymore.

Echo the others, BS academy is a really good shout

Unfortunately there’s a reason why virtually all current top showjumpers are either born into it (Harry Charles, a gazillion Whitakers) or the children of billionaires. So your daughter will need to accept that she’ll need to work extremely hard and have a ridiculous amount of good luck for it even to be a remote possibility. She will definitely need to have more than one pony and get taken under the wing of an established showjumping setup.

My daughter knows a girl who was pretty good as a teenager but didn’t really have the horsepower to go further - she went and worked for a showjumping family for a couple of years and has now set up on her own and has recently been selected for young riders teams and is doing very well so it can be done - she needed the connections and the experience of being a work rider at a top yard first though. She also has the advantage of living with her family who have enough land and money to build her own yard even if she’s not from an uber-wealthy background. This could end up being very expensive for you 😬

Thank you for all the recommendations and I completely see how this is a world inaccessible to the poor (by horsey standards) and unconnected. I will definitely contact our local BS academy and look into all the recommendations. She would absolutely love to work at a high level show jumping yard. She currently works at our yard. I just don't know where to start looking. But thank you once again for all the recommendations. I will get on it.

She's 13 and was at Pony Club before moving to current yard, but it was the Pony Club centre at the big North London riding school and they don't go out competing with Pony Club, which is a real shame. So she has been through the tests/badges but hasn't had the proper Pony Club competition experience.

She does the BS Junior shows at the moment and does well, but it would be great if someone could have a look at her and see if she/her pony have the talent and potential to go further. I'm not opposed to getting a second pony (we had two up until recently - her competition pony and her lovely first PC cob pony who is now with another family) but I want for someone to assess her and her and our pony (who is a little star I think 🤩) and give us some hard truths.

Just to add, she's very hard-working and willing to train as much as is necessary (at the expense of everything else 🙈). Her whole life revolves around the yard and she rides every day/works there on weekends/has several lessons per week etc. It's really all she wants to do. And (finances permitting 😖) I am willing to support her in trying to give this at least a shot.

She will definitely need to have more than one pony and get taken under the wing of an established showjumping setup

This isn't necessarily true. My friends dd competes at top levels, RI, HOYS etc, has recently this year been to Austria, France and Netherlands representing team GB and has never had more than one pony. Whilst it was rather a unique set of circumstances that allowed them (mum was a single parent working as stable staff) the money to buy her pony, once established with all the sponsorships etc it becomes a little more affordable. One good pony is enough!

Your BSJA connected instructor is surely your best bet and just explain it as you have here. It doesn't sound like you want to replace her, just move up some levels. She should be fine with this. Is your current pony likely to be capable of competing at such a level though? As many of these ponies are 5 figure sums and not at the lower end either. You definitely need the money to throw at it especially initially

It likely wouldn’t hurt to get more involved with the PC and try and get on some of their teams also is she at a school that has a show jumping team as that may be another thing to look into .

Agree, I hadn't seen your updated when I posted but pony club is a great idea and 13 isn't too late, I'm sure that's the age I joined. Obviously a proper pony club branch rather than a pony club yard like you've done previously

I would add, I think being a professional rider without your own yard, a family that do it with connections to billionaire owners, or being the child of a billionaire owner is… unlikely.
The only people I’ve known do really well as riders who don’t have this are jockeys, for which you essentially need a huge amount of talent, be incredibly light and incredibly lucky that don’t end up with a life training injury en route

However I know a lot of people who do well up to 1.30m/1.40m level as amateurs with 1/2 horses and have a great time.

Life changing injury that should say

I would echo all the recommendations on here, join pony club and jump on their teams, Bs academy and NSEA ( if her school doesn’t have a team get her to approach a teacher and get the school to sign up, if they are really strapped for cash offer to pay the reg fee)
When she leaves school, if she still is super keen, as you don’t have your own yard I would encourage her to get an apprenticeship with a decent SJ yard. Kid i taught a couple of years ago has one and has been out on the sunshine tour and jumping their young horses at competitions ( he was very experienced beforehand though to be fair)

This isn't necessarily true. My friends dd competes at top levels, RI, HOYS etc, has recently this year been to Austria, France and Netherlands representing team GB and has never had more than one pony. Whilst it was rather a unique set of circumstances that allowed them (mum was a single parent working as stable staff) the money to buy her pony, once established with all the sponsorships etc it becomes a little more affordable. One good pony is enough!

of course there will always be one or two who make it against the odds - however with one pony you are really riding the luck wave … if the pony gets injured that can be the season gone and other people will get picked for teams instead.

Yep… agree with pleasedont my friend has a very talented daughter, proper top track rider, they can just about, with about 3 sponsors and a generous grandparent afford to run 1x top track pony. They qualified for EVERYTHING this season, hoping for teams. Pony spooked on a hack and twisted a tendon, best case scenario is that they can start riding pony again in walk after 6 months.
They don’t have the £50/60k for another top track pony lying around so that’s them until spring probably… and that’s assuming he comes right!

Your BSJA connected instructor is surely your best bet and just explain it as you have here.

You would think so 😞but horsey people are unfortunately not always very reasonable people. Having (veeeeeeery gently and veeeeery politely) asked the coach whether it might be a good idea to enquire with the local BS academy about any camps/clinics, this led to a complete meltdown, as apparently this means I'm undermining what they do and things can only be done their way. 😔 I'm honestly the most laid-back parent who absolutely never interferes with what the coach does as I'm usually at work when my daughter rides. I never even watch her lessons.

If my daughter didn't have loads of friends at the yard I would honestly have walked out. I feel we're completely trapped as it's such a small world and if we were to approach anyone or do anything outside of the strict parameters set by the coach, they will find out and make my daughter's life miserable. My daughter can take tough coaching (she's very used to it!) and isn't the sensitive type, but I don't always feel the coach picks their favourites based on results or even any fair parameters.

Anyway, sorry about the rant. Just feel quite down about it all. We're not even allowed to go to any Junior shows (of which there are so few in our vicinity at the moment) unless the coach takes us. Asking (veeeeeeery politely) if we could arrange our own transport in order to go to more shows makes me the worst human being ever apparently.

Oh no!! That's so awful 😢

Oh, and they know those running the local BS academy personally. Apparently their friends are running all the local branches so they would definitely find out if I were to call up. And they have already said that me looking to register with the BS academy means I'm looking at other coaches because it's a training network and this means my daughter can't also be on her yard's team.

Your yard manager sounds like an absolute maniac! I’d look to move her, not being allowed to do BS academy is a madness,

Escape your instructor. I used to be a head groom for an advanced event rider, every good instruction who knows their salt knows that top riders rarely have 1 instructor - camp/clinics are completely different to regular tuition. Different instructors can give you a different set of eyes and work on different aspects of training.
Your instructor is just trying to keep them in the yard team.

You seem to be trapped by the yard instructor wanting to keep her on the yard team. Really suggest try and move yards, and to get your own transport too. A good instructor will know your DD will learn different things with different instructors and that's going to help her in the long run.
Actually the key here is get transport of your own and do stuff yourselves. Join Pony Club, and do as many BS Academy trainings as you can, try and book her on camp regardless (BS or Pony Club, she'll enjoy it and it's a spell of intensive training.

Thank you All! I also think they are trying to ensure we never approach another trainer and can never speak to anyone else in the horse world unless under their watchful eye. I know a friendly international dressage rider who also advised not to let them bully us. To be fair, they are a very good jumping coach, just a very difficult person. 😣 The main problem with moving yards (apart from being scared of the coach's reaction 😱) is that my daughter has loads of friends there and her whole social life revolves around the yard. Any recommendations for jumping yards with competition teams around London greatly appreciated.

Hmm, thing is if the instructor is that bad/possessive, surely there's no way you can get your DD the assessment you're after by someone else without her finding out about it and this impacting on your DD? Either the instructor will have to come to you which of course will mean whole yard knowing or (more likely) you'll have to go to their yard or a venue where they're doing a clinic, which if you don't have own transport and can't go out independently without the teacher knowing about it isn't really a go-er either? I guess you could pretend you're going for a hack or the vets or something but not a great message to ask your child to lie to her friends and teachers over something not even wrong or shameful and that would only work for an initial assessment, if she goes for regular lessons or clinics elsewhere word is bound to spread.

It does seem a bit mad that the instructor is so opposed to you taking your own DD and pony off the yard without running it by her first, like others have said it's perfectly normal for competitive kids to go to camps and clinics where they're taught by a variety of different people, regular lessons I can see are perhaps a bit different as you'd like to build up a rapport and coaching relationship which can be difficult if the child is simultaneously being taught by different people with maybe different styles but even then that's the parent/child's prerogative surely. I'm sorry she was so horrible to you, there was nothing wrong in what you asked

I agree with others, a choice may be on the horizon that if DD genuinely wants to pursue the slim chance of making it as a professional showjumper she will need to move to a more accommodating/professional yard, or she can stay where she is, enjoy being with her friends etc and consider equine college at 16 or 18 or a working pupillage, which although might be an even slimmer chance at getting to the Olympics but is a perfectly good way of building a career in the industry at large which can include some element of competing alongside maybe teaching or running another equine business alongside, you do see 'amateurs' (I use the term loosely to mean people who have another job/don't earn a full time income purely from the sport) having very high level success in equine sports running one horse or a small string alongside other commitments. Maybe not national level team type success commonly but 5 star shows/international competition possible with a certain amount of financial support from other income sources and luck with your one top-level horse not going lame etc.

Thank you again for the very wise words. Regarding transport, it's true we don't have our own lorry, but I have a good relationship with two very reputable horse transport firms who can take us. It's just that we can't get off the yard without being seen (as ridiculous as that sounds 😂) and us going to shows (let alone clinics) on our own starts WWIII.

I will speak to my daughter and look at other options in the area.

I personally wouldn’t worry about being on a jumping yard/professional show jumpers yard.
Far better to focus on a good livery, with good turnout, a good school and a good set of jumps. That is far better than being on a jumping specific yard with a slightly mad yard owner/manager.

Also a lot of professional jumping yards I’m aware of turnout shockingly infrequently. Which I would avoid like the plague… Horse first sport second!!

Also a lot of professional jumping yards I’m aware of turnout shockingly infrequently.

That's a whole other major issue! 🙁