Some people...

I'm sure it's the same with any other sport/hobby/whatever, that people feel the need to show off how much they know.  Then there's always the Dunning-Kruger effect (you don't know how much you don't know until you know more; then you realize how much you didn't know when you didn't know it).  But it really seems as if horse people are afflicted with the Dunning-Kruger effect, snobbiness, and one-up-iness more than other folks.

So there's this online horse website I read.  It has discussions set up in separate forums by topic.  In the "New to Horses" forum, someone posted that she (I'm assuming it's a she, as you do on a horse forum until informed otherwise) wanted "to start English riding."  She knows she needs a size 17 or 17.5 (saddle size, presumably, but she doesn't specify) and wants to know:  where to get a saddle, whether she should buy one new or used, how to introduce English to a Western horse, what tack she needs, how to budget, and riding tips.

Other than not knowing how to budget, seems like a good question for the section about being new to horses, right?  So a few people chimed in with tips, like how she probably shouldn't buy tack if she's just getting started, but where to look if she did decide to, that she should take lessons, whether starting from scratch or switching from Western to English, etc.

Oh, my.  She did NOT take kindly to the kindly advice.  She accused the people who responded of treating her like a child.  She's a very "experianced" [sic] rider and owns three horses that, get, this, she picked out herself!  Well, goodness, you never said so!  Everyone knows that choosing an equine makes you an excellent (ahem, "experianced") rider.  And she rode English once or twice and it was easier, much easier than western, since western saddles weigh "like a 100 pounds."  Yep, 'cause what makes a certain discipline difficult (for the rider) is the weight of the tack.  Well, being a jockey must be so easy even a baby could do it!  She doesn't board since she owns her own place, and she doesn't take lessons--she learns from her mistakes.

So, were the other posters in the thread chastised by this "experianced" rider?  Were they put off by her rudeness?  They were neither.  They kindly explained that they assumed she was new since she was posting in a thread for people new to horses, and were only reacting to her questions within that context and the context set by the questions themselves.  So they provided additional information to her, refuted (politely) her claims about English being easier than western (neither is easier, and anyone switching disciplines would do well to take lessons), and the usual pointing out of the fact that ANYone can benefit from lessons, and even Olympic-level riders have their trainers, blah blah blah...

She responds that she is (once again) "experianced" in Western and knows the basics of English, and just wants to know the best places to get a saddle.  And "just tips on riding; like just random tips."  She doesn't like people underestimating her.  She "might be young but all [her] horsey friends thinks [she has] a REAL talent with horses."  She gets them and knows how to fix problems.  (But doesn't have a clue where to buy an English saddle, and doesn't know what other tack she might need.)

So now some of the posters start getting a little more assertive about how defensive she's being, and how SHE asked the question, in a forum designed for newbies, so of course she got answers to her newbie-ish questions that might have sounded like they were directed at a newbie.  And they proceeded to give her more tips, mostly about how she should reconsider her stance on lessons.  :-)

She replied back that people who board at a place that has grooms to tack, untack, and take care of the horses are inferior, but she's not "hating on" them.  But she's saying she does know how to "do things," she does all those chores herself!  Wow--she picked out her horses AND she grooms and tacks them herself?  WHY isn't she out there running clinics on her awesome horsemanship skills?  She could be the Parelli of horse grooming and choosing and bragging about it!