Horses like Mama make you think you're someplace even when you haven't done anything yet. Then along comes the next horse and you find you haven't really got the vocabulary to talk to them and explain what you want them to do. People who buy a really trained horse with the notion that the horse is going to teach them what they need to know are missing the point. The horse can teach them what the right thing feels like, but the horse can't teach them how to communicate that same feel to another horse. That's a different skill.
Horse shows are just games people play to have fun with their horses.
And as soon as somebody gets really good at the game and starts winning all the ribbons, somebody else decides to change the game so other people have a chance to win. A true horseman understands how to create a corridor of pressures that create a shape the horse can feel. Those corridors are the same no matter what game the horse is being trained to play or whether he's a baby or an old campaigner or whether he's an Arab or a Quarter horse. You can be a true horseman without necessarily being a winner in the show game. But the people who win all the performance games are not necessarily horsemen.