Do I need riding lessons on my horse?
The Unhappy Hacker
Before answering the question – do I need riding lessons? I thought about how far we have come in our vocabulary with regard to learning how to ride our horses once we have left the confines of the riding-school and own our own horse. No longer are we taught by teachers, we all have trainers – and not the ones which reside in the cupboard under the stairs! Even the word ‘instructor’ is rarely heard outside the British Horse Society but it all boils down to the same thing. Someone wants to learn, someone else can teach them.
West Spring Stud only recommends instructors who can actually teach you.
Over the years I have heard many stories with regard to teaching and learning – it’s important here to understand the maxim ‘teachers teach and pupils learn’. One story imparted to me spoke of a woman and her horse who received 3 years worth of lessons in walk. This must have suited all 3 members of this unit otherwise it would not have continued for so long. Perhaps the trot was a fearsome thing, perhaps the walk was never perfect – who knows, but one has to suppose that the pupil was learning and the teacher was teaching!
On the other end of the scale was the rider receiving instruction from a highly respected dressage teacher; he always chose to teach from the confines of the judges’ box. All very well in bad weather but when the pupil’s mother had to constantly wake him up during the lessons, one wonders how much instruction was being received?
West Spring Stud trainers deliver value for money.
So, this is all very well if you absolutely know you and your horse need to walk for 45 minutes, or that the mere presence of your trainer, even in a dormant condition, is enough for you to be able to magically acquire knowledge. But, even before we are receiving this expert level of instruction, for most of us there comes a point at which we realise we need to look round for help.
A friend once said to me “I’ve bought an unbroken pony and I’m going to break it in and school it”. “Marvellous” thought I – how lucky she is to be able to school that pony, until it dawned on me that she had never learned how to school any pony. Yes she rode, but she was a passenger on a pony which had been schooled by someone else. I asked her if she spoke fluent French, “no” was her response – so how would you teach somebody to speak French if you did not speak the language yourself? I feel the same notion applies to schooling ponies and horses.
Quite a few elements can come together in the decision to have lessons. For many of us we bob-along as happy hackers, blissfully unaware that the horse is actually having difficulty carrying us, or is simply not enjoying the experience. The horse goes forwards when he’s following his stable mate; he stops, especially outside the gate; he trots – sometimes much faster on the way home and he canters – especially on the way home. All-in-all we have a wonderful happy relationship – until the horse does not go any further than the gate or he canters all the way home ignoring hazards and our feeble attempts to wrestle him to a halt. This is riding on a wing-and-a-prayer and usually where we admit that the happy hacking is becoming a lot less happy. At this point the excuses NOT to ride begin and years of paying for a horses’ keep whilst someone else rides it, or worse still it languishes in the field, become the norm.
Learn to ride your horse safely and effectively, West Spring Stud is offering to help you.
But for the sake of riding lessons which will instill confidence and determine any obvious problems with teeth, tack, feeding, shoeing etc., the reins of control can be put back into the hands of the rider – where they belong. There is no shame in needing lessons – but there is shame in knowing you need lessons and in not looking for help.